Eight cities in Central Asia and the Caucasus have joined the UN campaign, ‘Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready,' which includes over 2,400 participants worldwide.
The eight cities are: Noyemberyan and Berd in Armenia; Tbilisi and Gori in Georgia; Oskemen and Ridder in Kazakhstan; and Bishkek and Kara-Kol in Kyrgyzstan.
By joining the campaign, the cities commit to strengthen community resilience by integrating disaster risk reduction (DRR) into local policies.
12 January 2015: Eight cities in Central Asia and the Caucasus have joined the UN campaign, ‘Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready,’ which includes over 2,400 participants worldwide. The eight cities are: Noyemberyan and Berd in Armenia; Tbilisi and Gori in Georgia; Oskemen and Ridder in Kazakhstan; and Bishkek and Kara-Kol in Kyrgyzstan. By joining the campaign, the cities commit to strengthen community resilience by integrating disaster risk reduction (DRR) into local policies.
The campaign is based on a ten-point checklist for making cities resilient, which build on the five priorities for action of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), including: building local alliances; budgeting for DRR activities; providing incentives for homeowners, low-income families, communities, businesses and the public sector to invest in reducing risks; maintaining current data on hazards and vulnerabilities, and preparing risk assessments for urban development plans and decisions; investing in and maintaining infrastructure that reduces risk and addresses climate change; applying and enforcing risk compliant building regulations and land use planning principles; protecting ecosystems and natural buffers to mitigate floods, storm surges and other hazards that threaten cities; and installing early warning systems and emergency management capacities in cities.
The campaign aims to build local capacity to assess natural hazard risks, update action plans that include disaster risk, increase accessibility of international DRR expertise, and foster sharing of experiences between municipalities and local governments.
A post-2015 DRR framework to be agreed in March 2015, in Sendai, Japan, is expected to emphasize the strengthening of community resilience, particularly in municipalities with populations of less than 10,000. The ‘Making Cities Resilient’ campaign was launched in 2010 and is promoted by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). [UNISDR Press Release] [Making Cities Resilient Campaign Website] [10 Essentials for Making Cities Resilient]