essay about disaster risk reduction management

About . Click to expand section.

• Our History
• Team & Board
• Transparency and Accountability

What We Do . Click to expand section.

• Cycle of Poverty
• Climate & Environment
• Emergencies & Refugees
• Health & Nutrition
• Livelihoods
• Gender Equality
• Where We Work

Take Action . Click to expand section.

• Attend an Event
• Partner With Us
• Fundraise for Concern
• Work With Us
• Leadership Giving
• Humanitarian Training
• Newsletter Sign-Up

Donate . Click to expand section.

• Give Monthly
• Donate in Honor or Memory
• Leave a Legacy
• DAFs, IRAs, Trusts, & Stocks
• Employee Giving

What is disaster risk reduction?

And why do we need it?

Mar 15, 2020

While initiatives like the Paris Climate Agreement have been put into place to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it’s not enough to stave off the next disaster. We can’t predict the unpredictable... but we can prepare for it.

In 1999, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote , “one of the most pressing challenges of our time [is] the extraordinary increase in the number and extent of natural disasters.” 

Over the 20 years that have followed, this challenge has only become more pressing, with one UN estimate placing economic losses due to natural disasters at more than double what was lost in the previous two decades. 

The cost of these disasters disproportionately hits the poorest, most vulnerable, or fragile communities hardest . The UN has also  reported that people in low- and middle-income countries are seven times more likely to die from natural disasters. While initiatives like the Paris Climate Agreement have been put into place to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it’s not enough to stave off the next disaster. We can’t predict the unpredictable... but we can prepare for it.

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) protects the lives and livelihoods of communities and individuals who are most vulnerable to disasters or emergencies. Whether the crisis is caused by nature or humans (or a combination of both), DRR limits its negative impact on those who stand to lose the most. 

In some cases, we can reduce the size of a disaster, its strength, or even how frequently it occurs. In tandem with this, we can also make sure that those who are most exposed to these hazards are able to better anticipate, survive, and recover. DRR focuses specifically on the three key dimensions of disaster risk:

• Exposure to hazards
• Vulnerability and capacity
• Characteristics of each hazard

With this in mind, the goal of DRR is to prevent new risks, reduce existing risks, and increase overall resilience .  

Why is DRR important?

The United Nation has an agency specifically responsible for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and its chief, Mami Mizutori , sums up the problem: “The world has been stuck in a vicious cycle of disaster → response → dependency → repeat.”

Learn more about how we build resilience around the world:

This cycle of disasters mirrors the cycle of poverty , creating dependencies instead of fostering development. But, an ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure. In more concrete terms, according to the UNDRR, every $1 (USD) invested in disaster risk reduction can save up to $15 in recovery. Every $1 spent to fortify infrastructures against disaster likewise saves $4 in reconstruction. 

Every $1 spent to fortify infrastructures against disaster can save $4 in reconstruction. (Source: UNDRR)

Disaster risk reduction not only saves lives, it helps to improve them — freeing up more funds for organizations like Concern to use towards long-term development versus in-the-moment emergency response. 

DRR at work

No two disaster risk reduction plans are the same, but there are a few key initiatives that are often key components:

• Infrastructure designed to reduce risk, like retaining walls, check dams, embankments, or terraces. 
• Natural resource management, like reforestation
• Agricultural interventions like Climate Smart Agriculture and conservation agriculture 
• Behavioral change — for example, peace-building processes or addressing the inequalities that make some people more vulnerable than others
• Evacuation procedures and safe shelters
• Early warning systems and preparedness planning for improving local response to disasters when they happen

Concern’s approach to disaster risk reduction

Concern is a dual-mandate organization — meaning that we respond to both immediate emergencies while also focusing on longer-term development that will help communities lift themselves out of poverty. As such, DRR is a fundamental aspect of our work and we have our own core approaches that incorporate UN principles.

Learn more about Concern's work on disaster risk reduction

What we talk about when we talk about resilience

Climate Smart Agriculture: Back to the basics to fight climate change and hunger

Project Profile

Responding to Pakistan's Internally Displaced (RAPID)

Sign up for our newsletter.

Get emails with stories from around the world.

You can change your preferences at any time. By subscribing, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Disaster Risk Reduction

• UNESCO’s commitment
• The built environment
• Risk governance and social resilience
• Early Warning Systems
• Education and school safety
• Disaster Risk Reduction for culture
• Post disaster response
• Knowledge, science, technology and innovation for resilience
• Environment & ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction
• International frameworks
• International Day

Climate change, urban pressure and lack of disaster preparedness, are increasingly transforming natural hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis into disastrous events causing life and economic losses. The risk of disasters caused by natural hazards is rising.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is increasing in the agenda of the Organisations of the UN System. While the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 is the roadmap for Disaster Risk Reduction, other global agendas including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement, the New Urban Agenda and the Biodiversity Agenda have targets that cannot be attained without considering Disaster Risk Reduction. There are clear links between those international instruments.

Natural hazards are naturally-occurring physical phenomena caused by either the rapid or slow onset of events having atmospheric, geologic and hydrologic origins on solar, global, regional, national or local scales. Disasters often follow natural hazards and they are a result of the combination of hazards, the conditions of vulnerability and of the insufficient capacity or measures to reduce the potentially negative consequences of the hazard.

Disaster risk reduction is the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyse and reduce the causal factors of disasters.

UNESCO is acting across the board, in advocating for risk awareness, prevention, and preparedness and build back better, in fostering learning and in building capacity. Operating at the interface between the natural and social sciences, education, culture and communication, UNESCO seeks to strengthen the resilience of societies - through capacity building, knowledge sharing and networking, early warning and policy advice, working with governments, civil society, research institutions, other UN agencies and international organizations, and all key actors. Working alone or in collaboration with both UN Agencies and other scientific entities, UNESCO has been a catalyst for international, inter-disciplinary cooperation in many aspects of disaster risk reduction and mitigation.

UNESCO's contribution to Disaster Risk Reduction

UNESCO supports the Member States on:

• Science, technology and innovation for resilience
• Disaster Risk Reduction for culture & sites
• Environment & ecosystem based Disaster Risk Reduction

The work of the Organization is being developed and implemented through its different Sectors, Field Offices, Designated and Affiliated Sites, Category I and II Centers, UNESCO Chairs and Networks. The leadership of the organization is recognized and partners look up to UNESCO to lead the mainstreaming of DRR in its mandated sectors and to promote trans- and multi-disciplinarity in research.

Latest news

• Contact: [email protected]

Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction Essay

Poverty reduction strategy papers, how cyclone laura will have an impact on the macro-economy, how development failures can worsen the situation, disaster risk reduction plan, cyclone idai and the millennium goals, reference list.

Disaster risk reduction is the process of protecting the assets and livelihoods of people or individuals from the impact of hazards. This definition is comprehensive in that disaster risk reduction entails minimizing the risks of a disaster through systematic efforts to analyze and reduce a disaster’s causal factors (International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, n.d). Lowering human exposure to risks, managing land and the environment effectively, reducing the vulnerability of people and property, and enhancing disaster preparedness are some examples of disaster risk reduction (Bello, Bustamante and Pizarro, 2021). Disaster risk reduction also covers disciplines such as disaster mitigation, disaster preparedness, and disaster management and being part of sustainable development.

Poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) describe the macroeconomic, structural, and social policies and programs to minimize poverty and promote growth in a country alongside associated external financing needs. The primary purpose of PRSPs is to help recipient countries attain the Millennium Development Goals (Elkins, Feeny and Prentice, 2018). PRSPs were introduced by the World Bank in September 1999 as an instrument to aid the body in assisting developing countries (Kranke, 2020). PRSPs work by detailing the plan of a nation toward reducing poverty and promoting growth through implementing particular social, economic and structural policies over three years or longer.

Cyclone Laura will typically be associated with a contraction in the economic output of Southeast Texas and hence the reduction in GDP. Strulik and Trimborn (2019) argue that in the short-term aftermath of any natural disaster such as a cyclone, production factors are fixed due to the interruption of trade flows and supply constraints. The output will be lost, and the resulting inflation will erode the demand, boosting government expenditure’s influence on response and reconstruction efforts. Thus, the cyclone’s impact on the economic output will be unequivocally negative.

Moreover, the cyclone will lead to fiscal and monetary pressures. This disaster, like any other, can pose a significant issue to public finances and debt sustainability (Jha et al., 2018). This catastrophe striking Southeast Texas implies that public finances will take a two-pronged hit. This will occur since economic activity will contract, causing a reduction in both current and future tax revenues. Furthermore, government expenditure will be directed to funding reconstruction efforts and emergency relief. Under the fiscal constraints that Southeast Texas undergoes, the monetary considerations will further magnify the cost of government stimulus spending.

Lastly, the cyclone will cause a threat to the financial stability of Southeast Texas owing to the resultant inadequate risk transfer and risk financing. In a systematic domino effect, disaster losses can spread across different sectors of the economy (Panwar and Sen, 2019). Both direct and indirect losses compounding in physical and human capital can therefore put the economy of Southeast Texas on a permanently slower growth track.

Development failures will lead to an increase in poverty levels due to the destruction of various economic activities, which are also the source of income for many families. Development failures will lead to capital assets and infrastructure, such as schools, housing, roads, factories and equipment critical to the general economy (Fairbairn, 2019). Typically, this will imply that poor people suffer disproportionately from their economic assets. When this disaster destroys their farms, workshops and equipment and no recovery solution is given to them, their financial stability is adversely affected (Benevolenza and DeRigne, 2019). They may be forced to sell their assets to meet their basic needs. Such an action could lead to them falling into long-term poverty traps from which it would be inherently difficult to emerge. The poor, thus would be vulnerable to an increase in their poverty levels.

Cyclone Idai hitting South Africa set back millennium goals in various ways. Firstly, the plan to eradicate poverty and hunger was affected since the cyclone led to the destruction of more than 700,000 hectares of crops in Mozambique alone due to flooding (Lager, 2021). The goals to achieve universal primary education and promote gender equality and women empowerment were hampered as the cyclone increased women’s and girls’ daily chores. They had to travel long distances to find firewood water; hence their education was paralyzed. Furthermore, this cyclone hindered the efforts of the millennium goals to reduce child mortality as the displacement that resulted following this disaster put children at risk of exploitation and separation from families, hence lowering their chances of dying from hunger and other related causes.

Additionally, the MDGs aim to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases encountered a setback as conditions became rampant due to the floods. Further, access to health services was paralyzed; hence people became susceptible to dying from these emergent diseases. The cyclone hampered MDG’s goal to improve maternal health as health centers were rendered dysfunctional at the onset of the cyclone. Women thus had to give birth under unacceptable conditions, thus endangering their lives.

Finally, cyclone Idai was a setback to the MDGs goal to ensure environmental sustainability. The cyclone caused a crippling economic crisis which resultantly paralyzed the efforts of the governments to implement sustainability practices as the funds were directed to mitigating the calamity. Amidst the worsening climate crisis, various governments struggle to acquire financial resources to implement adequate and speedy environmental recovery efforts.

Bello, O. Bustamante, A. and Pizarro, P. (2021). ‘Planning for disaster risk reduction within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,’ Project Documents (LC/TS.2020/108), Santiago, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Web.

Benevolenza, M.A. and DeRigne, L. (2019). ‘The impact of climate change and natural disasters on vulnerable populations: A systematic review of literature’, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment , 29 (2), pp.266-281. Web.

Elkins, M. Feeny, S. and Prentice, D. (2018). ‘Are poverty reduction strategy papers associated with reductions in poverty and improvements in well-being?’, The Journal of Development Studies , 54 (2), pp.377-393. Web.

Fairbairn, T.I. (2019). ‘Economic consequences of natural disasters among Pacific island countries,’ Australian National University.

International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), (n.d). What is Disaster Risk Reduction? Web.

Jha, S., et al. (2018). Natural disasters, public spending, and creative destruction: a case study of the Philippines, ADBI Working Paper, No. 817, Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Tokyo. Web.

Kranke, M. (2020). IMF-World Bank cooperation before and after the global financial crisis , Global Policy , 11 (1), pp.15-25. Web.

Lager, Z. (2021). ‘A community model for water-energy-food security nexus development: cultivating sustainable livelihoods and an adaptive co-management approach in rural Mozambique.’ Web.

Panwar, V. and Sen, S. (2019). ‘Economic impact of natural disasters: An empirical re-examination,’ Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research , 13 (1), pp.109-139.

Strulik, H. and Trimborn, T. (2019). ‘Natural disasters and macroeconomic performance,’ Environmental and Resource Economics , 72 (4), pp.1069-1098.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, December 28). Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-disaster-risk-reduction/

"Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction." IvyPanda , 28 Dec. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-disaster-risk-reduction/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction'. 28 December.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction." December 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-disaster-risk-reduction/.

1. IvyPanda . "Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction." December 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-disaster-risk-reduction/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction." December 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-disaster-risk-reduction/.

• Arab Nationality Themes by E. W. Fernea and Robert Fernea
• Traffic Signals Time Allocation: 5-Steps Solution
• Disaster Management: The case of the Gonu Cyclone
• Decision Support System for Cyclone and Weather Forecasting
• Effects of Cyclone on Banana Supply and Demand in Australia
• How We Can Attract Higher Quality Volunteers
• Description of the Amphan Storm Disaster in India
• Marketing Plan For an Innovative New Product
• Tonga Cyclone Gita
• The Hurricane Katrina Disaster
• Warehouse Risk Management: Pharma Insurance
• Risk Management Steps for a Company
• Volkswagen Company's Risk-Return Trade-Offs
• A Risk Analysis: Cultural Differences in a Multinational Company
• Risk Assessment Options

• Global Assessment Report (GAR)
• PreventionWeb

Special Events

• Global Platform
• International Day for Disaster Reduction
• World Tsunami Awareness Day
• Sendai Framework Monitor
• Voluntary Commitments
• UNDRR Africa
• Sendai Framework Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction

Disaster risk management

Disaster risk management is the application of disaster risk reduction policies and strategies to prevent new disaster risk, reduce existing disaster risk and manage residual risk, contributing to the strengthening of resilience and reduction of disaster losses.

Annotation: Disaster risk management actions can be distinguished between prospective disaster risk management, corrective disaster risk management and compensatory disaster risk management, also called residual risk management.

• Prospective disaster risk management activities address and seek to avoid the development of new or increased disaster risks. They focus on addressing disaster risks that may develop in future if disaster risk reduction policies are not put in place. Examples are better land-use planning or disaster-resistant water supply systems.
• Corrective disaster risk management activities address and seek to remove or reduce disaster risks which are already present and which need to be managed and reduced now. Examples are the retrofitting of critical infrastructure or the relocation of exposed populations or assets.
• Compensatory disaster risk management activities strengthen the social and economic resilience of individuals and societies in the face of residual risk that cannot be effectively reduced. They include preparedness, response and recovery activities, but also a mix of different financing instruments, such as national contingency funds, contingent credit, insurance and reinsurance and social safety nets.
• Community-based disaster risk management promotes the involvement of potentially affected communities in disaster risk management at the local level. This includes community assessments of hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities, and their involvement in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of local action for disaster risk reduction.
• Local and indigenous peoples’ approach to disaster risk management is the recognition and use of traditional, indigenous and local knowledge and practices to complement scientific knowledge in disaster risk assessments and for the planning and implementation of local disaster risk management.
• Disaster risk management plans set out the goals and specific objectives for reducing disaster risks together with related actions to accomplish these objectives. They should be guided by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015‑2030 and considered and coordinated within relevant development plans, resource allocations and programme activities. National-level plans need to be specific to each level of administrative responsibility and adapted to the different social and geographical circumstances that are present. The time frame and responsibilities for implementation and the sources of funding should be specified in the plan. Linkages to sustainable development and climate change adaptation plans should be made where possible.

Disaster risk management in the Knowledge Base

Comprehensive Disaster and Climate Risk Management

Risk governance

Is this page useful?

Thank you. If you have 2 minutes, we would benefit from additional feedback (link opens in a new window) .

UN DESA Policy Brief No. 139: Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience for Climate Action through Risk-informed Governance

Global Trends in Disasters and its Consequences on Societies

Emerging trends globally show that there is a stark upsurge in the number of disasters in this century compared to the previous one. Over the past two decades, climate-related disasters have nearly doubled compared to the preceding twenty years, affecting more than 4 billion people. According to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Human Cost of Disaster Report 2020, “In the period 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people, and resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses” This trend is expected to continue as carbon dioxide concentrations are now at the highest level in at least 2 million years with about 148% above pre-industrial levels. According to the Asia Pacific Disaster Report 2021 by ESCAP, “Fewer people are dying as a result of natural hazards as countries have been devising more robust systems of early warning and responsive protection.” Global temperatures are projected to rise by up to 3.2°C by 2100 (UN DESA, 2021) with average annual losses estimated to increase up to US$415 billion by 2030. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in particular are the most susceptible to disasters. With an ever-increasing rate, SIDS are consistently hit by severe storms and other catastrophes, resulting on average an annual loss of 2.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its report of August 2021 issued a code red for humanity. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized that the window of opportunity to prevent the worst climate impacts is rapidly closing as no region is immune to the impending disaster. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause immense suffering, it is also undermining governments’ ability to respond to climate change, disaster risk and resilience. For instance, while SIDS contribute little to the climate change problem globally by emitting less than 1 percent of global emissions, they however suffer disproportionately from climate impacts. In this context, this policy brief examines how to strengthen disaster risk reduction and resilience for climate action through risk-informed governance as illustrated in Figure 1.

What is Risk-informed Governance for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Resilience?

While resilience refers to the ability of a system, community exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner; risk-informed governance focuses on preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk and managing residual risk. Risk-informed governance also refers to integrating DRR strategies into the disaster preparedness process, land-use planning, investment decisions, urban development, and economic development plans for effective management and recovery at all levels of society. Managing disaster and climate risk therefore requires strong governance systems exemplified by appropriate laws and policies, strong leadership, institutions and coordination mechanisms, clear roles and responsibilities, resources, monitoring, and accountability set up across all sectors, and levels.

Why is Risk-informed Governance Critical for DRR and Resilience?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development places great significance on DRR as a cross-cutting element in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Reducing disaster risk and strengthening resilience are interrelated thrusts of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. The Sendai Framework calls on governments to move towards risk-informed governance arrangements that include broader hazard and risk scope and incorporate the concept of systemic risk. Priority 2 of the Sendai Framework expressly calls for strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk.

The principles of effective governance for sustainable development, established by the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) and endorsed by the Economic and Social Council in 2018, also call for putting in place promotion of coherent policymaking, strategic planning foresight and risk management frameworks in the public sector as some of the strategies for sound policymaking. Strategies to implement the principles of effective governance provide practical guidance on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and contribute to strengthening the effectiveness of institutions. Strategic guidance notes, developed in 2021 to operationalize the principle of sound policymaking, show the effectiveness of risk-informed government, including for DRR and responding swiftly to the COVID-19 crisis.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of strategic planning and foresight, an organized, systematic way of looking beyond the expected to engage with uncertainty and complexity. The pandemic has also brought renewed attention to the importance of strengthening multi-hazard DRR and risk governance to build a safer and more resilient world. Risk management frameworks shows how the identification, measurement, monitoring, and evaluation of diverse risks followed by a coordinated and cost-effective application of resources can minimize and control the probability and impact of exposure and to try to maximize the realization of possible returns.

What are the Challenges in Strengthening DRR and Resilience for Climate Action through Risk-informed Governance?

Governments across the world are currently faced with multiple challenges in fully strengthening their risk-informed governance systems to reduce disasters’ risk and build resilience. These include – ineffective leadership with weak national and local governance systems; poor and weak institutional arrangements, limited capacities and institutional coordination mechanisms, including poor national to local coordination; limited integration of global development goals into national policies, plans and programmes; lack of, or limited engagement of multi-stakeholders; ineffective and lack of risk-informed communication systems; inadequate adoption of frontier and innovative technologies; weak financial capacities and data to drive evidence-based and risk-informed decision-making among others. Addressing these challenges requires a holistic approach that embraces the unique context of each society.

Policy Recommendations and Key Building Blocks for Strengthening DRR and Resilience

Promote effective public governance and integrate risk-informed governance into drr strategies.

Promoting effective public governance for the SDGs and DRR require a multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional approach through the whole-of-government approach in planning to mitigate risk through investments in data, tools and methods that support risk identification, assessment, and management which is critical to building resilient societies. Governance is an important determining factor in the success or failure of DRR and Climate Change Adaptation. DRR also requires capable leadership that is effective, agile, inclusive, and risk-informed to act on scientific evidence and take note of and act upon climate-related disasters. Countries should therefore focus on mobilizing and allocating the needed resources and capacities to better plan, anticipate, implement, report, monitor and evaluate their DRR strategies while integrating DRR into their national plans and programmes. Strong and effective risk-informed leadership is thus at the core of building sustainable and resilient societies. Governments and leaders ought to promote transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability in risk-related decision-making by incorporating good governance practices and continuously learn from experience and science (UN DESA, 2021).

Foster sound policymaking

Governments must enhance sound policymaking, including risk management frameworks, and proactively equip themselves with the proper knowledge, tools, competencies for developing policies and planning for unknown future shocks that could disrupt social, economic, and environmental stability. CEPA has stated that to achieve their intended results, public policies are to be coherent with one another and founded on true or well-established grounds, in full accordance with fact, reason and good sense. The strategies for operationalizing sound policymaking developed by CEPA are strategic planning and foresight, regulatory impact analysis, promotion of coherent policymaking, strengthening national statistical systems, monitoring and evaluation systems, science-policy interface, risk management frameworks, and data sharing.

Increase investments in DRR, climate resilience and mobilize innovative finance

Investing in DRR and resilience saves lives and money as well as yields economic, social, and other environmental benefits that enhance the well-being and resilience of communities. The World Bank notes that every US$1 invested in making infrastructure disaster-resilient saves US$4 through fewer disruptions and reduced economic impacts, while the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) highlights that spending US$800 million on early-warning systems in developing countries would avoid losses of between US$3 billion and US$16 billion per year. Exploring risk-informed, innovative and sustainable financing systems such as green bonds, public-private-people partnership (PPPP), and crowdfunding including forecast-based financing with coordinated multi-hazard early warning systems (EWS) are highly recommended for strengthening DRR and resilience especially in SIDS who are at the forefront of multiple global catastrophes.

Increase resilience of infrastructure systems and adopt a strategic approach to resilience

The resilience of existing infrastructure systems can be increased by enhancing local and national government capacities to manage infrastructure assets proactively as an interconnected system based and led by data and evidence. Sound infrastructure asset management can involve a series of soft interventions, such as changing maintenance schedules based on vulnerability and risk assessments, or structural measures, such as raising the height of bridges to account for sea-level rise. It is therefore critical to ensure the resilience of infrastructure assets, the services they provide, and communities they serve by building capacities at the local and national levels to manage infrastructure assets proactively over their entire lifespan and as an interconnected system. Strategies for building resilience include the adoption of coping capacities to be able to survive and respond to shocks, reinforcing EWS and strengthening DRR strategies especially in SIDS which has inherently high pre-existing vulnerabilities to disasters.

Integrate and mainstream human rights-based approaches and gender issues

Leaving no one behind requires the integration and mainstreaming human rights-based approaches including the engagement and empowerment of women as well as prioritizing the needs of people in vulnerable situations in the design and implementation of policies and programmes since they are disproportionately affected in times of disasters.

Promote multi-stakeholder engagement, international and regional partnerships, and cooperation

Stakeholder engagement through the whole-of-society approach and effective partnerships are important since disaster risk management requires diverse stakeholders working collaboratively to share information, expertise, resources, and technology. Disaster risk is a shared responsibility, and all including citizens, public and private sectors and civil society organizations ought to participate, because DRR requires a people-centered approach. International and regional partnerships and cooperation through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation through research, information and technology sharing, resource mobilization and exchange of lessons on good practices on DRR are essential. In particular, strategic partnerships are critical and presents enormous opportunities for countries in special situations including SIDS.

Leverage government innovation and frontier technologies

Frontier technologies including Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) such as artificial intelligence (AI), drones, and big data analytics provide immense opportunities for strengthening risk-informed governance. Improved data collection, analysis, application, and data governance can provide enormous benefits by reducing economic losses, saving lives, improving livelihoods, and managing disaster risk. Innovative technologies including open government data, enhances the accuracy of risk assessment, contributes to effective measures to anticipate, prevent, prepare, mitigate, and manage disaster risk. UN DESA’s Curriculum on Governance for the SDGs toolkit on Risk-informed Governance for DRR provides more details. It is important to develop and strengthen integrated, robust, reliable, quality, timely, and disaggregated data systems to ensure evidence-based and data-driven decision making to better plan, predict, respond, and recover from disasters more effectively and efficiently.

Build capacities and change mindsets of public servants and community members

Building capacities of governments, experts and community members with up-to-date skills and competencies is critical to strengthening risk-informed governance for building back and forward better, especially in this Decade of Action. Building DRR capacities is as significant as the risk reduction measures themselves. SDG target 3.d, calls for “Strengthened capacities of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks”. It is important to build capacities and change mindsets of communities and stakeholders to be able to accurately anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from disaster risk situations. Public servants need to embrace an agile mindset and develop competencies in systems-thinking to perceive the links, cause-effect relations, and dynamics affecting sustainable development and risk-informed adaptation to maintain effectiveness when experiencing change.

Foster effective risk-informed communication and awareness campaigns

In conclusion, improving disaster risk management is vital and this requires a deeper understanding among the citizenry of what, where and how disaster occurs, the losses it produces and how to prevent them. Being able to accurately predict, identify, assess, and understand disaster risk through effective risk communication and awareness raising is critical to reducing it.

Authors: Samuel Danaa and Ana Thorlund, UN Project Office on Governance, Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government, UN DESA.

• Office of the Director
• Global Economic Monitoring Branch
• Development Research Branch
• Development Policy Branch
• Secretariat of the Committee for Development Policy
• CDP Plenary

27th session: Tentatively 24-28 February 2025

• Least Developed Countries
• LDCs at a Glance
• International Support Measures
• Economic and Environmental Vulnerability Indicators
• Human Assets Indicators
• Inclusion into the LDC Category
• Graduation from the LDC Category
• Graduation Preparation & Smooth Transition
• LDC Resources
• Contacts and Useful Links

LDC resources

• List of LDCs
• Reports and Resolutions
• Analytical documents
• Impact Assessments
• Vulnerability Profiles
• Monitoring Reports
• Country Snapshots

Committee for Development Policy

• CDP Members
• CDP Resources
• News & Events
• Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

CDP Documents by Type

• Reports & Resolutions
• Policy Notes
• LDC Handbook
• Background Papers
• CDP Policy Review Series

CDP Documents by Theme

• Sustainable Development Goals
• Financing For Development
• Productive Capacity
• Social Issues
• Science & Technology
• Small Island Developing States
• Fraud Alert
• Privacy Notice
• Terms of Use

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

Essay on Disaster Management

• Updated on  
• May 10, 2023

Disaster Management has been essentially included in the study curriculums of secondary education. Whether it is natural or man-made, disasters can wreak havoc on our surroundings and cost human lives as well. To familiarise students with efficiently preventing and ensuring the safety of living beings and our environment from unprecedented events, the study of Disaster Management has been included as an important part of the Geography class 10 syllabus. This blog aims to focus on imparting how you can draft a well-written essay on Disaster Management.

This Blog Includes:

What is disaster management, essay on disaster management: tips & tricks, sample format for essay on disaster management in 150 words, sample essay of disaster management (150 words), sample essay on disaster management (300 words) , sample essay on disaster management (500 words), essay on disaster management for class 9 onwards, essay on disaster management in india.

To begin with your essay on Disaster Management, the most important thing is to comprehend this concept as well as what it aims to facilitate. In simple terms, Disaster Management is termed as the management and utilisation of resources as well as responsibilities to tackle different emergencies, be it man-made disasters or natural ones. It concentrates on preparing human beings for a varied range of calamities and helping them respond in a better way as well as ensure recovery thus lessening their overall impact. 

Preparing for the Writing Section for Your English Exam? Then Check Out Message Writing and Letter Writing !

Before drafting your essay on Disaster Management, another thing you need to ensure is familiarising yourself with the structure of essay writing. To help you understand the do’s and don’ts, we have listed down some of the major things you need to keep in mind.

• Research thoroughly about your topic. For example, while writing an essay on Disaster Management, explore the recent happenings and mention them to provide the reader with a view into your understanding of this concept.
• Create important pointers while researching that you can further incorporate into your essay.
• Don’t mug up the definitions but comprehend them through examples.
• Use transitions between paragraphs to keep a coherent flow for the reader as a long paragraph might seem too lengthy and segregating your introduction and conclusion can provide a better structure.
• Quote important examples not only in your introduction but also in the following paragraphs where you detail the given topic.
• Revise and add finishing touches once you have completed the essay to locate any grammatical errors as well as other mistakes.

Now that you are aware of the key elements of writing an essay on Disaster Management, take a look at the format of essay writing first:

Introduction (30-40 words)

Begin with defining your topic explained in simple terms. For Disaster Management, You can make it more interesting by adding a question or a recent instance. The introduction should be understandable aiming to become more specific in the subsequent paragraphs.

Related Article: Geography for UPSC Preparation

Body of Content (80 words)

Also termed as the thesis statement , the content after the introduction should explain your given topic in detail. It should contain the maximum content out of the whole format because it needs to be detailed. For Disaster Management, you can delve deeper into its process, how it is carried out for different situations as well as prevention and protection.

Conclusion (30-40 words)

This section should mainly wrap up what you have described in the above paragraphs. For an essay on Disaster Management, you can focus on summing it up by writing its aim, types and purposes briefly.

Disaster can be simply termed as a sudden incident or happening which can be either natural or man-made and can potentially cause damage to the surroundings or loss of human life. To facilitate preparedness and better responsiveness to unforeseen events which can harm human beings and the environment, Disaster Management came into the picture.

Disaster Management aims to lessen the impact of natural and man-made calamities by designing and planning efficient ways to tackle them. It centrally comprises ensuring better control of the situation, its immediate evaluation, calling up required medical aids and transports, supplying drinking and food sources, among others and during this whole process, protecting the surroundings from more harm and keeping the lawfulness. The importance of Disaster Management has further increased in the contemporary scenario with the prevalent climate change and some of its latest examples include the unprecedented Australian wildfires.

Thus, the planet is getting bogged down by infinite technological devices, and their possible effects on the climate and the environment are inescapable. This has led to Disaster Management becoming the need of the hour as every country is aiming to become efficient and prepared to face both natural and man-made calamities.

Since the dawn of time, disasters, whether natural or man-made, have been a part of man’s evolution. Tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes, floods, accidents, plane crashes, forest fires, chemical disasters, and other natural disasters frequently strike without notice, leading to massive loss of life and property. Disaster management refers to the strategies and actions put in place to lessen and prevent the effects of a disaster.

The word “disaster management” refers to all aspects of catastrophe mitigation, including preventive and protective measures, preparedness, and relief activities. The disaster management process can be separated into two phases: pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery. This encompasses measures such as prevention, mitigation, and preparedness aimed at minimising human and property losses as a result of a possible danger.

The second category is activity post-disaster recovery in which response, rehabilitation, and reconstruction are all included. Search and rescue evacuation, meeting the victims’ basic needs, and rapid medical support from regional, national, and international authorities were all part of the response phase. The immediate purpose of the recovery phase is to restore some degree of normalcy to the afflicted areas. In resource-scarce countries, ex-ante risk mitigation investment in development planning is critical for decreasing disaster damage. It would be prudent to go from a risk-blind to a risk-informed investment decision.

We cannot prevent disasters, but we can reduce their severity and arm ourselves with knowledge so that too many lives are spared.

Introduction: 

The globe is plagued with disasters, some of which are terrible and others that are controllable. Natural calamities, for example, are sudden occurrences that wreak significant devastation to lives and property. Disasters can occur either naturally or are man-made. To repair the damage caused by these disasters, emergency management is required. Through a disaster management procedure, the damage is contained and the hazards of the event are controlled. The procedure is aimed at averting disasters and reducing the effects of those that are unavoidable. Floods, droughts, landslides, and earthquakes are all threats to India. The Indian government’s disaster management measures have vastly improved over time.

The Process of Disaster Management: 

The disaster management process is split into four stages. The first phase is mitigation, which involves reducing the likelihood of a disaster or its negative consequences. Public education on the nature of the calamity and how people may prepare to protect themselves, as well as structural construction projects, are among the actions. These projects are intended at reducing the number of people killed and property destroyed in the event of a disaster.

Preparedness is the second phase of disaster management, and it aims to improve government-led preparedness to deal with emergencies. The majority of the preparations are aimed toward life-saving activities. Plan writing, communication system development, public education, and drills are all part of the preparation process. The disaster management team implements measures to keep people alive and limit the number of people affected in the third phase, reaction. Transport, shelter, and food are provided to the afflicted population as part of the response. Repairs are being made, and temporary solutions, such as temporary housing for the impacted population, are being sought.

Recovery is the ultimate stage of disaster management. This normally happens after the tragedy has subsided and the harm has been done. During the recovery process, the team works to restore people’s livelihoods and infrastructure. Short-term or long-term recovery is possible. The goal is to return the affected population to a normal or better way of life. During public education, the importance of health safety is highlighted. The recovery phase allows catastrophe management to move forward with long-term solutions.

Disaster Management Challenges:

The management of disasters is a difficult task, and there are certain flaws to be found. Since the individual dangers and disasters in some countries are not well understood, the government is unable to deploy disaster management in the event of an unforeseen disaster. There’s also the issue of a country’s technical and framework capabilities being insufficient. Government support is required for disaster management frameworks. Due to the generally large population, the disaster management approach includes public education, but there is no psychological counselling for individuals. People are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and psychiatric illnesses.

Conclusion:

Disaster management is a very important activity that countries should embrace to prevent disasters and lessen the negative consequences of disasters. However, disaster management has limitations that restrict the techniques’ ability to be implemented successfully.

Disasters can cause chaos, mass death of humans and animals, and a rise in crime rates. Disasters are unfavourable events that cause widespread anxiety and terror. They also make it difficult for society to respond to its causes.

Natural or man-made disasters can emerge. In both circumstances, they have the potential to cause significant loss of life and property. A combination of man-made and natural disasters can occur in severe circumstances. For example, violent conflicts and food scarcity. As a result, disaster management is required to limit or prevent massive loss and damage.

Disaster management includes disaster avoidance, disaster awareness, and disaster planning. These ideas will be discussed further down.

Prevention of Disaster: 

Countries all across the world have taken precautions to prevent diseases or viruses from spreading. These initiatives include the funding of research into natural disaster aversion. Other sources of revenue include food distribution, healthcare services, and so on. In Africa and the Middle East, the latter is commonly used in economically challenged areas.

Improved scientific research has also made it feasible to predict potential natural disasters. For example, equipment to detect earthquakes and tsunamis has been developed. As a result, more people are concerned about the environment. In this sense, consciousness translates to a reduction in all forms of pollution in the environment.

Disaster Awareness :

Another strategy to minimise the excesses of widespread epidemics is to raise disaster awareness. Members of the public must be made aware of the importance of maintaining peace, de-escalating dangerous circumstances, and prioritising safety in the face of any possible tragedy.

The goal of disaster management is to reduce human death and suffering. The impact of disasters can be reduced if all of these factors are successfully managed. As a result, the necessity of disaster management cannot be emphasised.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is the main agency charged with establishing rules and guidelines for disaster management in order to ensure prompt and effective disaster response. There is also a separate fund for mitigation called the “national disaster management fund” (NDMF). Functions performed by this agency are:

• Administration
• Formation of policies for disaster management
• Approval of the strategies made up for disaster mitigation
• Formation of revenue or funds for disaster mitigation
• Managing multiple programmes and disseminating instructions.

The disaster has had both direct and indirect repercussions on human life, both of which have been deadly devastating and detrimental. There have been fatalities as well as stock losses. Natural disasters are unavoidable; even if we have mechanisms in place to predict or forecast them, we cannot prevent them from occurring. While preparing plans for our disaster management, the best that can be done is to prevent behaviours that are detrimental to the environment and lead to environmental deterioration. When a disaster strikes, it causes widespread devastation and loss of life. In the event of a disaster such as earthquakes, floods, or other natural disasters, a large number of people are displaced, and a large number of people die as a result of the disaster. This is when the true emergency begins by providing first aid to the injured, as well as rescue and relief efforts for the victims. To limit the risk of human life, everyone must participate actively in disaster management. When a crisis happens, the appropriate disaster management team can seize over as soon as possible.

Also Read: Career in Ecology and Environment

The 4 phases of disaster management are Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. 

The 3 types of disasters are natural, man-made, and hybrid disasters.

On 23 December 2005, the Government of India enacted the Disaster Management Act

Hence, we hope that this blog has helped you understand the key steps to writing a scoring essay on Disaster Management. If you are at the conclusion of the 10th grade and confused about which stream to take in the next standard, reach out to our Leverage Edu expert and we’ll guide you in choosing the right stream of study as well as gain clarity about your interests and aspirations so that you take an informed step towards a rewarding career.

Sonal is a creative, enthusiastic writer and editor who has worked extensively for the Study Abroad domain. She splits her time between shooting fun insta reels and learning new tools for content marketing. If she is missing from her desk, you can find her with a group of people cracking silly jokes or petting neighbourhood dogs.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Leaving already?

8 Universities with higher ROI than IITs and IIMs

Grab this one-time opportunity to download this ebook

Connect With Us

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. take the first step today..

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

September 2024

January 2025

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Disaster Risk Management

How it works

“Disasters can happen to anyone at any time, but research says even the best disaster-recovery plans will not work exactly as envisioned (Drew & Tysiac, 2013). Huge amounts of destruction and suffering can lead to mental health and other issues for employees. This is why organizations should focus on their people’s needs. Firms in the state of Florida and other natural disaster areas are well-advised to have business interruption insurance, which is structured to compensate businesses for time-frames when they are unable to operate because of disaster.

Article by Drew and Tysiac states, “” The best and most important part of the plan is to identify how to safeguard assets and client records prior to a disaster””. A recovery plan should be developed to mitigate losses and help an organization recovery as soon as possible after a disaster has occurred (Drew & Tysiac, 2013).

Some of the important things that should be considered in a recovery plan are ways to communicate with employees and customers, a location if office space is destroyed by a disaster, how to access important files, meeting human needs of staff, what services or parts of the business can be restored first, and the type of insurance the company has for disasters such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. (Drew & Tysiac, 2013). When it comes to communication, firms need a plan in case phone towers are damaged, there is power loss or other unforeseen events happening. Location is critical in case the office is destroyed, firms can set up at designated houses or areas that have no damage. When it comes to accessing files, firms really should use a backup on computer systems or iCloud because papers get damaged in disasters. When it comes to the human needs of staff, firms need to establish if mental health services will be available and how they can get a paycheck to employees. Not only the business, but employees have to deal with the loss of their own personal property as well. Restoring a business after a disaster can be hard and challenging but certain parts can be restored quicker than others. Firms should figure out what services they can still provide to their customers and how they can provide them. Having the proper insurance for disasters is critical to help restore an organization and its business as soon as possible. Every organization should have a copy of their policy on a computer backup system as well in case it is lost by the insurance agency (Drew & Tysiac, 2013).

Using the example above, a hurricane will have a negative effect on the swimwear shop. Businesses have to remember to communicate during crisis situations and execute business contingency plans after the crisis. The business first needs to identify the risk which would include the location (building), type of insurance coverage they have to cover the losses from the disaster, merchandise in the store being damaged or lost, suppliers being able to get supplies to the location (alternate routes or delivery methods), and the mental and physical state of the employees since they are local residents and the disaster may impact them and their properties as well. Our lecture explains that emergency response capability is a highly effective method to mitigate disaster risk (Miles, 2018). This includes planning, preparedness plans, rehearsals, weather forecasting, and insurance (Miles, 2018).

Once the business assessment and risk analysis are complete, managers can start to develop their emergency action plan. The first priority is to gain clarity on the insurance policy and what all it covers including building and merchandise. Store hours would be reduced and communication with employees have to be established. When it comes to the supplier, the shop should reduce inventory and also reduce prices in the store during hurricane session to minimize the loss of merchandise. Once the disaster is over, the manager/owner of the shop should make sure the supplier can deliver and have inventory to meet the customer’s demands. Of course, merchandise prices will increase after a disaster to help recover from the loss in sales. As a manager, setting up a temporary location in case of severe building damage after a disaster would not be a bad idea. This allows the company to still serve the community and also give employees an opportunity to work and earn wages. After the disaster, I would have half of the staff at the original shop to help clean and build the swimwear shop back up while the other half at the temporary location continuing with business. Businesses should have a separate account (funds) to help cover deductibles, employee payments, and damages the natural disasters may cause. Mitigation of disasters can be successful only when the detailed knowledge is obtained about the expected frequency, character, and magnitude of the dangerous events in the area (Charoenpanyanet & Suwanprasit, 2018).

Charoenpanyanet, A., & Suwanprasit, C. (2018). GeoS4S Module Disaster Risk Management. International Journal of Geoinformatics, 14(3), 75–78.

Drew, J., & Tysiac, K. (2013). Preparing for Disaster. Journal of Accountancy, 215(5), 26–31.

Miles, Angela. (2018). Unit 7: Planning for Catastrophic Events & Preparing for Workplace Safety. Retrieved from https://betheluniversityonline.net/grad360/default.aspx?SectionID=286&tabid=156#/unit/7/Attend

Cite this page

Disaster Risk Management. (2019, Nov 13). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/disaster-risk-management/

"Disaster Risk Management." PapersOwl.com , 13 Nov 2019, https://papersowl.com/examples/disaster-risk-management/

PapersOwl.com. (2019). Disaster Risk Management . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/disaster-risk-management/ [Accessed: 28 Apr. 2024]

"Disaster Risk Management." PapersOwl.com, Nov 13, 2019. Accessed April 28, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/disaster-risk-management/

"Disaster Risk Management," PapersOwl.com , 13-Nov-2019. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/disaster-risk-management/. [Accessed: 28-Apr-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2019). Disaster Risk Management . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/disaster-risk-management/ [Accessed: 28-Apr-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Disaster Risk Resilience: Conceptual Evolution, Key Issues, and Opportunities

• Open access
• Published: 21 June 2022
• Volume 13 , pages 330–341, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Marie-Hélène Graveline 1 &
• Daniel Germain 1 , 2  

12k Accesses

19 Citations

7 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Resilience has become a cornerstone for risk management and disaster reduction. However, it has evolved extensively both etymologically and conceptually in time and across scientific disciplines. The concept has been (re)shaped by the evolution of research and practice efforts. Considered the opposite of vulnerability for a long time, resilience was first defined as the ability to resist, bounce back, cope with, and recover quickly from the impacts of hazards. To avoid the possible return to conditions of vulnerability and exposure to hazards, the notions of post-disaster development, transformation, and adaptation (build back better) and anticipation, innovation, and proactivity (bounce forward) were then integrated. Today, resilience is characterized by a multitude of components and several classifications. We present a selection of 25 components used to define resilience, and an interesting linkage emerges between these components and the dimensions of risk management (prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery), offering a perspective to strengthen resilience through the development of capacities. Despite its potential, resilience is subject to challenges regarding its operationalization, effectiveness, measurement, credibility, equity, and even its nature. Nevertheless, it offers applicability and opportunities for local communities as well as an interdisciplinary look at global challenges.

Similar content being viewed by others

Disaster preparedness of local governments in Panay Island, Philippines

Building community resilience in a context of climate change: The role of social capital

From Poverty to Disaster and Back: a Review of the Literature

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Over the last two decades, the interest in the concept of resilience has grown significantly in the scientific community. Over the past 20 years, more than 30,000 articles with the term resilience in the title or keywords have been indexed in the SCOPUS database. In 2017 alone, more than 200 papers were published on resilience in the field of risk and disaster management—a sevenfold increase from 10 years earlier ( n = 30 in 2008) (Demiroz and Haase 2019 ). Through this explosion of interest, the concept of resilience has evolved greatly and has been widely discussed within the scientific community. The purpose of this review is to present the conceptual evolution of resilience in the risk and disaster management field while highlighting its principal components, major issues, and best opportunities.

2 Etymology and History of the Resilience Concept

The term resilience has a long and diverse history. Alexander ( 2013 ) and O’Brien and O’Keefe ( 2013 ) traced the history of the use of the term as well as its etymological evolution through the major eras. Its exact origin is unclear, but resilience is thought to come from the Latin resilire , resilio meaning “to leap” (Manyena et al. 2011 ; Alexander 2013 ). Both terms were used by Seneca the Elder, Ovid, Cicero, and Livy in their works in classical antiquity to mean leaping, jumping, or bouncing. In the Western Middle Ages and then in Modern Times, the term resiler was used in Middle French to express the action of retracting, and the term resile was used in England to express the fact of retracting, returning to an old position, resisting. The first known scientific use of the term resilience was in 1625 by Sir Francis Bacon, an English attorney general, in the Sylva Sylvarum , a collection of writings on natural history. The first known definition of the word comes from the Glossographia published from 1618 to 1679. Its author, Thomas Blount, gave it a double meaning: to bounce and to go back on one’s word. From 1839 onwards, the term resilience was associated with the ability (strength) to recover from adversity. At the end of the nineteenth century a prominent Scottish engineer, William J.M. Rankine, used the term in the field of mechanics to designate the strength (resistance) and ductility (ability to be stretched without breaking) of steel beams. As early as 1950, the concept began to be used in ecology and psychology, two fields in which it would become very important. The ecologist Holling ( 1973 ) later conceptualized resilience as a measure of an ecosystem’s ability to absorb disturbances and persist without changing its fundamental structure. In the late 1990s, the concept migrated from natural ecology to human ecology because of economists and geographers. In the field of risk and disaster management, the concept of resilience started to be used in the 1970s but gained importance especially from the end of the twentieth century and after 2010 (Demiroz and Haase 2019 ).

The broad evolution of the concept of resilience can be explained by its journey in time across various disciplines. Widely used, its meaning evolved as it has gained importance in fields such as ecology, psychology, engineering, social sciences, and so on (Alexander 2013 ; O’Brien and O’Keefe 2013 ). The major definitions from several fields and disciplines are presented in Table 1 . Although there is currently no real consensus on the definition of resilience in risk and disaster management, the definition of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR 2021 ), formerly UNISDR, is probably the one most recognized.

3 Conceptual Evolution of the Term Resilience in Risk and Disaster Management

Over the past two decades, the concept of resilience has been highlighted by the evolution of research and practice efforts in the field of risk and disaster management. These efforts have long been oriented towards post-disaster response and recovery (Cronstedt 2002 ; Cutter et al. 2014 ), rather than pre-event initiatives such as prevention and preparedness (Hyunjung 2018 ). Subsequently, divergent approaches from natural and social sciences have focused either on the hazard itself, or on vulnerability. All these approaches aimed at making communities more resilient to hazards by reducing the hazard itself (frequency, intensity, and so on) or by working on the vulnerability factors of communities (sensitivity, exposure, and so forth). Although these approaches have contributed greatly to disaster risk reduction (DRR), as well as to sustainable community development, they are still considered as part of a reactive framework (Hyunjung 2018 ). According to many (for example, Innocenti and Albrito 2011 ), a more progressive and proactive approach to risk reduction is needed and the risk paradigm should no longer focus solely on reducing vulnerability, but also on building resilience (McEntire et al. 2002 ; Cutter et al. 2008 ; Olwig 2012 ; Twigg 2015 ; Williams and Shepherd 2016 ). It is in this context that current efforts are increasingly oriented towards risk reduction that focuses on building and strengthening resilience, including the valorization of positive factors such as local capacities and social capital (Hyunjung 2018 ).

The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) established as the second strategic goal of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005−2015:

[…] the development and strengthening of institutions, mechanisms and capacities at all levels, in particular at the community level, that can systematically contribute to building resilience to hazards (UNISDR 2005 , p. 4).

The concept of resilience then gained importance until it was used 60 times in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015−2030. The Sendai Framework makes it its third priority for action: “Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience” (UNISDR 2015 , p. 14). The explosion of interest in resilience over the last decade has thus contributed to the evolution of the concept and the development of different visions, or even schools of thought, of resilience in the field of risk and disaster.

Resilience and vulnerability have long been considered as opposing, interdependent, or correlated concepts. Some refer to resilience as the inverse of vulnerability (Twigg 2007 ). Thus, increasing resilience would reduce vulnerability and vice versa (Chisty et al. 2021 ). Resilience and vulnerability have also been considered by others to be subcomponents, subconcepts, or attributes of each other (Turner et al. 2003 ). Many, however, consider them to be subcomponents of the concept of risk (Cutter et al. 2008 ; Aven 2011 ) since one (vulnerability) consists of factors that increase risk and the other (resilience) consists of factors that reduce risk. In this sense, a good understanding of vulnerability is the starting point for building resilience (Alexander 2013 ), and resilience is now “deployed as a strategy to overcome the vulnerability of communities in the wake of natural disasters” (McDonnell 2020 , p. 56). However, while all these thoughts on the conceptual positioning of resilience in relation to vulnerability have their accuracy, they rather represent simplistic translations of the complex and multidimensional character of these two concepts. In the end, it appears that resilience has evolved into an independent concept, albeit one that is related to, and interconnected with, vulnerability.

From ecology and engineering, resilience was characterized as the ability to resist, bounce back, cope with, and recover quickly from the impacts of hazards (Mileti 1999 ; Alexander 2013 ). Linked to a rather reactive risk strategy, the focus is on the resistance of infrastructures and systems and the speed of return to the initial pre-disaster state (bounce-back). Resilience is thus visualized as an elastic band that can stretch without breaking (ductility) and return to its original shape without deforming. This perspective of resilience thus induces a return to the pre-disaster conditions of the system or community without thinking, without regard to their evaluation, making it possible to return to the conditions of vulnerability that may have caused the hazard or exacerbated its impacts (Paton and Johnston 2017 ).

To address this challenge, the notion of “build back better” and “bounce forward” has been developed within risk management and has contributed to the integration of post-disaster development, transformation, and adaptation capacities within resilience (Kennedy et al. 2008 ; Manyena et al. 2011 ; Béné et al. 2012 ). Disaster is then seen as an opportunity to improve, change, and thus adapt (Paton 2006 ). From this point of view, resilience represents “the intrinsic capacity of a system, community or society predisposed to a shock or stress to bounce forward and adapt in order to survive by changing its non-essential attributes and rebuilding itself” (Manyena et al. 2011 , p. 419). At the heart of this conception of resilience is a well-known mechanism of human development: experiential learning (Manyena et al. 2011 ). Particular emphasis is placed on the reporting of events, as they feed into the processes of reflection, learning, and feedback necessary to build on lessons learned. This perspective on resilience also opens the door to planning and action over longer time horizons. However, in the context of risks and disasters, this conception of resilience remains reactive.

Recently, the meaning associated with the expression “bounce forward” seems to have shifted to a new one, more focused on proactivity. This new conceptual input idealizes resilience as the ability to leap beyond risk rather than bounce back. Greater importance is then given to the capacities of anticipation, innovation, and adaptability to uncertainties (Rubim and Borges 2017 ). Until recently, resilience was divided into three main visions and objectives: (1) to reduce impacts and consequences; (2) to reduce recovery time; and (3) to reduce future vulnerabilities (Koliou et al. 2020 ). This new perspective opens the door to a fourth vision: that of reducing the impact of uncertainties. Moreover, this representation favors the development and the reinforcement of resilience without having undergone a prior shock.

Ultimately, through its various phases of conceptual evolution, resilience is now defined by its three complementary dimensions: bounce back, build back better, and bounce forward. This combination of meanings makes resilience a difficult concept to define in any straightforward way.

4 Key Components of Resilience

Resilience is made up of an assemblage of several components that have multiplied through its conceptual evolution. Whether it is through the analysis of an individual, a community, or a complex system, many have worked to deconstruct, structure, and order the properties of the concept. For Tierney and Bruneau ( 2007 ), resilience is composed of four main elements: robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, and rapidity. According to Béné ( 2013 ), resilience relies instead on the synergy of three capabilities: absorption, adaptation, and transformation. For Chen et al. ( 2020 ), resilience to disasters can be summarized by three distinct capacities: the capacity to resist, adapt, and recover quickly. In a non-exhaustive way, Table 2 presents 25 components mentioned and frequently used to define resilience in the risk and disaster management literature.

When we observe the meaning of the listed components of resilience, they can be classified according to their conceptual dimension (Fig. 1 ). To facilitate operationalization, the components with similar meanings and processes can be gathered into groups of actions.

Components of resilience according to their conceptual dimensions

Looking at their nature, many of the components of resilience show an interesting fit with the actions, strategies, and time horizons of the four basic dimensions of risk management: prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery (Fig. 2 ). Some components of the “bounce forward” dimension apply to all dimensions of risk management such as innovation, flexibility, or autonomy, for example. While many see a conflict in the different conceptual views of resilience, we see it as a process that recognizes the gains of each of the major phases of the term’s evolution. Through this perspective, resilience would likely be strengthened at each stage of risk management using different capacities. Norris et al. ( 2008 ) presented a similar view of resilience as a set of attributes and capabilities in dynamic relationship.

Conceptual evolution of resilience according to risk management dimensions

5 Community Resilience

Within the field of risk and disaster management, building resilience is often community-oriented due to the importance of the local scale. Hazards generally occur locally and many of the most effective tools for reducing exposure are found at this scale. The impacts of disasters are felt immediately and intensely at the local level and local actors are the first responders. It is also at the local level that the core functions of environmental management and regulatory governance are concentrated and where governments and communities best engage and work together (UNDRR 2019 ). Because each community is composed of a complex and dynamic assemblage of social, economic, and natural environments (Meng et al. 2018 ), it is the ideal entity to develop or strengthen a resilience that is unique to that community and that will act effectively to manage the risks. Furthermore, to adequately represent the diversity within the vulnerable groups of a community, it is important to pay attention to its intersectional characteristics (Chisty et al. 2021 ).

According to Norris et al. ( 2008 ), the emergence of community resilience would be based on a variety of adaptive capacities grouped into four broad networked sets: economic development, social capital, information and communication, and community competence. These capabilities are characterized by dynamic attributes such as robustness, redundancy, and speed. Amobi et al. ( 2019 ) argued that community resilience is based on three key fundamentals: community leadership, social cohesion, and social connections. For Haase et al. ( 2021 ), community resilience is the result of six core capacities: human capital, physical capital, economic capital, social capital, institutional and environmental capital, and these encompass the 9 elements and 19 subelements proposed by Patel et al. ( 2017 ).

Among the many dimensions at the heart of community resilience are two fundamental notions: social learning and social capital. Social learning is defined as “a process of iterative reflection that occurs when we share our experiences, ideas and environments with others” (Keen et al. 2005 , p. 9). This concept is found, among others, at the basis of adaptive management (McEwen et al. 2018 ) and is a driver of social change. The concept of social capital has its roots in sociology but is now widely used in different fields (Chelihi et al. 2020 ). According to the sociologist Bourdieu ( 1986 , p. 247), social capital represents: “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” It is then considered as a resource that is acquired and maintained individually (Chelihi et al. 2020 ). For others, social capital constitutes “resources and attributes of social organization (communities, regions, countries)” (Chelihi et al. 2020 , p. 9) and encompasses both links and networks, as well as norms and values shared by the community. Norris et al. ( 2008 ) considered social capital as a combination of social support, social embeddedness, organizational ties, leadership and sense of community.

Resilience building actions and interventions are mostly carried out at the community level (McDonnell 2020 ), often through a community-based approach. This type of approach is used in several areas, whether it is for DRR (community-based disaster risk reduction—CBDRR), management (community-based management—CBM), adaptation (community-based adaptation—CBA), or development (community-driven development) objectives. It represents “a community-led process, based on communities’ priorities, needs, knowledge, and capacities, which should empower people to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change” (Reid et al. 2009 , p. 13), disaster risk, or sustainable development challenges. Based on the principle of inclusiveness, this approach places social aspects and the role of communities at the center of disaster risk management (Frankenberger et al. 2013 ). All members of the community are actively involved in decision making at all stages of the process (Shaw 2016 ), using participatory processes that mobilize a diversity of local actors and value local knowledge (Berkes 2007 ; Bahadur et al. 2013 ). The CBA is also based on the development of autonomy and self-organization of communities through capacity building of local actors. To enable communities to make the necessary transformations, this approach needs a decentralization of powers and the transfer of resources for effective risk management, local development, and environmental governance (Bahadur et al. 2013 ; UNDRR 2019 ; Davis et al. 2021 ). Proponents of this approach emphasize strengthening networks, connections, relationships, and social capital as well as improving community engagement and understanding (Mileti 1999 ; Gunderson and Folke 2005 ; Norris et al. 2008 ). It is also directly connected to the bottom-up management process whose activities can then be institutionalized (Shaw 2016 ). The UNDRR’s Local Risk Reduction and Resilience Strategy is a planning tool for local actors to integrate a DRR approach into local development and resilience building (UNDRR 2019 ).

6 Issues and Challenges

Resilience is a very promising concept for disaster risk management, but the lack of consensus on its definition is still a major challenge to its operationalization and assessment (Bollettino et al. 2017 ). To date, there is no unified approach to resilience, no single way to define it, measure it, or promote it to our communities (Demiroz and Haase 2019 ), which poses a challenge to its practical application. Because resilience is a complex, multi-dimensional and multi-scalar term, it brings several complications to its application. Its use implies a sharing of challenges and responsibilities between scales of intervention and practice and thus requires a multi-sectorial, multi-scalar, and inter-scalar approach (Bahadur et al. 2013 ; Bahadur and Pichon 2016 ). Some authors even consider the concept too imprecise to contribute significantly to DRR (Manyena 2006 ).

As an umbrella concept with many intangible factors, resilience is even more difficult to measure and model, further complicating the assessment of measures that claim to develop or strengthen it (Berkes and Ross 2013 ; Cutter 2016 ; Bollettino et al. 2017 ). While across the scientific community, a wide variety of approaches, frameworks, indices, and indicators have been developed to assess it (Ruszczyk 2019 ; Clark-Ginsberg et al. 2020 ), there is still little empirical data on the actual understanding and use of resilience by practitioners (Matyas and Pelling 2015 ). To date, it remains difficult to justify funding for resilience-based activities and to assess the results in a reliable and effective way for communities and investors.

There is also a lack of consensus on what resilience is. In the policy context, the concept is often used as an endpoint, an ideal to be achieved. In the sciences, resilience represents an attribute or a set of attributes, capacities, and conditions that can be developed, constructed, and measured (Reghezza-Zitt et al. 2012 ). For others, it should be considered as: “a complex of social processes that allow local communities to self-organize and enact positive collective action for community survival and wellbeing” (Imperiale and Vanclay 2016 , p. 207). In this sense, resilience represents a process or set of processes, rather than an endpoint, involving learning, anticipation, and improvement of basic structures, actors, and system functions (Norris et al. 2008 ; Mitchell and Harris 2012 ). From a utilitarian perspective, resilience can also be understood as both a process and an outcome (Matyas and Pelling 2015 ).

As a buzzword overused in political discourses since the twenty-first century (Mitchell and Harris 2012 ; Deeming et al. 2018 ), resilience has lost some of its meaning and credibility, especially for practitioners and citizens. Moreover, many believe that resilience, especially of communities, necessarily leads to better outcomes for all (Imperiale and Vanclay 2016 ; Patel et al. 2017 ) or is a positive indicator of development (McDonnell 2020 ). Yet the concept could be used to reinforce unethical practices or hegemonies or undesirable situations such as environmental degradation (Alexander 2013 ; MacKinnon and Derickson 2013 ), political marginalization of the vulnerable, poverty, or systemic corruption (Mochizuki et al. 2018 ). To address what some call the “dark side of resilience,” it is therefore important to pay particular attention to the power in communities so that the resilience of one group does not come at the expense of another group and that efforts to strengthen it do not contribute to perpetuating vulnerabilities (Matyas and Pelling 2015 ; McDonnell 2020 ). It is thus essential to practice critical resilience thinking through locality and marginality and to ask who benefits from resilience and who pays the cost, especially in the DRR, climate change adaption (CCA), human development, and spatial planning fields (Weichselgartner and Kelman 2015 ; Cutter 2016 ).

Furthermore, resilience has been associated with neoliberal perspectives and agendas (Cutter et al. 2013 ; MacKinnon and Derickson 2013 ) by encouraging the development of solutions for constant growth and competitive advantages for territories (Oliva and Lazzeretti 2017 ). From this perspective, resilience can be used as a moralizing discourse that, through the promotion of community autonomy, transfers the heavy responsibility of disaster management to individuals and communities without offering the necessary institutional support for its adequate management (Walker and Cooper 2011 ; Bankoff 2019 ; McDonnell 2020 ). Resilience approaches are generally conducted from an apolitical perspective. Yet, this desire for neutrality can lead to a narrow and one-dimensional resilience thinking that will keep addressing the symptoms rather than achieve the necessary structural transformations (Davis et al. 2021 ). In the end, all agree on the importance of developing and strengthening community resilience to disaster risks. However, the understanding of resilience is still too unclear to allow for adequate planning of practices on the one hand, and the development of tools and methodologies to address, engage, and strengthen local communities on the other hand (Hutter and Kuhlicke 2013 ; Mitchell 2013 ; Imperiale and Vanclay 2016 ).

7 Opportunities

Despite the challenges it imposes, resilience nevertheless offers a range of opportunities, including that of offering a holistic multi-hazard, even all-hazard, multi-scalar, and integrated approach (Berkes 2007 ; Bahadur and Pichon 2016 ). Resilience refers to the capacities of systems, communities, and societies, and these are applicable to different hazards and their dynamics, allowing for an integrative perspective (Ruszczyk 2019 ).

Then, the concept of resilience has great applicability. It can be applied to almost any phenomenon that involves a shock or stress (Alexander 2013 ). It offers an answer to the question: How do we prepare for the unknown? (Fekete et al. 2014 ). More concretely, resilience, as defined in the field of risk and disaster, applies to a broad spectrum of objects, in multiple practice settings, and at multiple spatial and temporal scales. With so many uses and possible applications, it is important to be clear about the parameters of resilience that are being analyzed and put into practice—especially, since there is no single recipe for building resilience, as it is intrinsically linked to the context of its object of analysis (Demiroz and Haase 2019 ). Thus, the resilience of a family in the context of a pandemic cannot be compared to the resilience of a regional road network in the context of a terrorist risk or to that of a municipality in the context of climate change.

Some consider resilience to be a multidisciplinary concept given its use in many disciplines (Upadhyay and Sa-ngiamwibool 2021 ). Characterized by a high degree of interdisciplinarity, it constitutes an effective frontier object that allows the bringing together of different political agendas, including those of the humanitarian and development fields (Matyas and Pelling 2015 ), and thus contributes to the development of transversal competences of actors at all levels. The imprecise nature of resilience and its conceptual flexibility can even benefit communication and knowledge exchange across disciplinary boundaries and between the fields of science, policy, and practice (Klein et al. 2003 ; Fekete et al. 2014 ; Weichselgartner and Kelman 2015 ; Deeming et al. 2018 ; Moser et al. 2019 ; Ruszczyk 2019 ). Resilience also allows for an interdisciplinary look at some global challenges that, until recently, were generally understood separately such as DRR, climate change adaptation, and sustainable development (MacAskill and Guthrie 2014 ; Weichselgartner and Kelman 2015 ; Bollettino et al. 2017 ). Through its evolution, the concept of resilience is moving away from its original definition from ecology, psychology, and the physical sciences and now offers greater interdisciplinarity among these three broad fields (Gero et al. 2011 ; Schipper et al. 2016 ; Kelman 2017 ; Ruszczyk 2019 ). This inherent interconnectedness contributes to the convergence of ideas but more importantly practices guided by the concept of resilience (Bahadur et al. 2013 ; Matyas and Pelling 2015 ; Mochizuki et al. 2018 ).

Adaptation has gained significant importance as a fundamental component of resilience, establishing an unmistakable conceptual bridge with the notion of climate change adaptation. The latter represents an “adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which mitigates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities” (UNFCCC 2021 ). Adaptation can be incremental and “maintain the essence and integrity of a system or process at a given scale” (IPCC 2018 , p. 542) or transformational and change “the fundamental attributes of a social-ecological system in anticipation of climate change and its impacts” (IPCC 2018 , p. 542). Whether it is through hydro-climatic risk management or the development of climate resilience, there are many points of intersection between the two fields. Moreover, while risk management has long been associated with a rather short time horizon (Thomalla et al. 2006 ), the conceptual evolution of resilience towards adaptation and anticipation opens the door to longer-term planning, allowing a better linkage with climate change adaptation objectives. For Lama et al. ( 2017 ), adaptation and resilience have become complementary objectives to be achieved to reduce vulnerability. However, the relationship between these two concepts is not simple and certain aspects must be considered for risk and sustainable development to ensure that adaptation and resilience are developed and strengthened effectively. These include the importance of making explicit the values, goals, and aspirations that drive the process; the spatial and scalar delineation of the individuals, households, and communities involved and their relationships; and the precise definition of the time period involved (Lama et al. 2017 ).

Resilience is also intrinsically linked to sustainable development, whether through territorial planning activities, resource management, or vulnerability factors. Sustainable development constitutes “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Imperatives 1987 , p. 14). Its process is based on the reconciliation of three basic elements, which are interdependent and all indispensable to the well-being of individuals and societies: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection (United Nations 2021 ). Sustainable development calls for and promotes the following elements: concerted action; poverty eradication; sustainable, equitable, and inclusive economic growth; creation of opportunities for all; reduction of inequality; improvement of basic living conditions; equitable social development; inclusion; and integrated and sustainable management of natural resources (United Nations 2021 ). Resilience and sustainable development enjoy a mutually positive relationship. Sustainable development can contribute to economic development activities that consider hazards and help reduce rather than exacerbate risk. In turn, resilience helps protect development efforts and their sustainability. Furthermore, resilience is linked to environmental protection through nature-based solutions and the ecosystem-based approach. For Mabon ( 2019 ), post-disaster recovery is an opportunity to reflect on how nature-based solutions can help a community to rebound differently, to build back greener. The ecosystem-based approach is used both in the field of climate change adaptation (ecosystem-based adaptation—EbA) and in the field of disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR), it gives a central role to ecosystems in adaptation and in disaster risk management. It consists of “the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall adapting strategy to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change” (UNDRR 2020 , p. 10). This approach thus refers to “the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to reduce disaster risk, with the aim to achieve sustainable and resilient development” (UNDRR 2020 , p. 10). The increasing importance of the principle of equity within the concept of resilience also contributes to bringing it closer to the objectives of sustainable development. According to Twigg ( 2007 ), the equitable distribution of wealth and assets and an equitable economy are essential to the development of community resilience. Thus, building community resilience should never be about maintaining the status quo, but rather about moving toward more equitable conditions (Cutter 2016 ; Amobi et al. 2019 ).

8 Conclusion

Resilience has undeniably become one of the big ideas of our time for dealing with uncertainty (Ruszczyk 2019 ). Beyond its catchy and all-encompassing nature, the concept is now being used as the basis for reflective decisions and concrete practices (Matyas and Pelling 2015 ), particularly by local communities. As discussions on resilience in the context of disaster risk, climate change, and sustainable development continue, its conceptualizations have yet to converge into a widely accepted framework (Mochizuki et al. 2018 ). Concerns and debates remain about its operationalization, effectiveness, and especially about the equity issues associated with it. The great conceptual evolution that resilience has undergone also raises questions. To what extent can a concept evolve, move away from its original meaning, without becoming distorted? Is resilience really the result of the evolution of efforts and the paradigm shift that disaster risk management has undergone in recent decades? Or has resilience reached its limit and are we seeing the emergence of a new, integrative concept?

Adger, W.N., T.P. Hughes, C. Folke, S.R. Carpenter, and J. Rockström. 2005. Social–ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science 309(5737): 1036–1039.

Article   Google Scholar  

Aldunce, P., R. Beilin, J. Handmer, and M. Howden. 2014. Framing disaster resilience: The implications of the diverse conceptualisations of “bouncing back”. Disaster Prevention and Management 23(3): 252–270.

Alexander, D.E. 2013. Resilience and disaster risk reduction: An etymological journey. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 13(11): 2707–2716.

Amobi, A., M. Lewis, A. Novais, and N. Alexander-Scott. 2019. ASTHO president’s challenge: Core principles for building community resilience. American Journal of Public Health 109(S4): S277–S278.

Aven, T. 2011. On some recent definitions and analysis frameworks for risk, vulnerability, and resilience. Risk Analysis 31(4): 515–522.

Bahadur, A., and F. Pichon. 2016. Analysis of resilience measurement frameworks and approaches. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Bahadur, A.V., M. Ibrahim, and T. Tanner. 2013. Characterising resilience: Unpacking the concept for tackling climate change and development. Climate and Development 5(1): 5–65.

Bankoff, G. 2019. Remaking the world in our own image: Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation as historical discourses. Disasters 43(2): 221–239.

Béné, C. 2013. Towards a quantifiable measure of resilience. IDS Working Papers 2013(434): 1–27.

Béné, C., R.G. Wood, A. Newsham, and M. Davies. 2012. Resilience: New utopia or new tyranny? Reflection about the potentials and limits of the concept of resilience in relation to vulnerability reduction programmes. IDS Working Papers 2012(405): 1–61.

Berkes, F. 2007. Understanding uncertainty and reducing vulnerability: Lessons from resilience thinking. Natural Hazards 41(2): 283–295.

Berkes, F., and H. Ross. 2013. Community resilience: Toward an integrated approach. Society and Natural Resources 26(1): 5–20.

Bollettino, V., T. Alcayma, P. Dy, and P. Vinck. 2017. Introduction to socio-ecological resilience . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Google Scholar  

Bourdieu, P. 1986. The forms of social capital. In Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education , ed. J. Richardson, 241–258. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Chelihi, M., J. Arnaud, J.-M. Normandin, and M.-C. Therrien. 2020. Social capital as an innovative vector of urban resilience: Detailed report ( Le capital social comme vecteur innovant de résilience urbaine: Rapport détaillé. Rapport de recherche ). Cité-ID LivingLab Gouvernance de la résilience urbaine. Montréal: École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP). https://cite-id.com/documents/le-cit%C3%A9-id-lance-son-rapport-le-capital-social-comme-vecteur-innovant-de-r%C3%A9silience-urbaine/Rapport_Capital_Social_et_R%C3%A9silience_Urbaine.pdf . Accessed 27 May 2022 (in French).

Chen, C., L. Xu, D. Zhao, T. Xu, and P. Lei. 2020. A new model for describing the urban resilience considering adaptability, resistance and recovery. Safety Science 128: Article 104756.

Chisty, M.A., S.E.A. Dola, N.A. Khan, and M.M. Rahman. 2021. Intersectionality, vulnerability and resilience: Why it is important to review the diversifications within groups at risk to achieve a resilient community. Continuity and Resilience Review 3(2): 119–131.

Clark-Ginsberg, A., B. McCaul, I. Bremaud, G. Caceres, D. Mpanje, S. Patel, and R. Patel. 2020. Practitioner approaches to measuring community resilience: The analysis of the resilience of communities to disasters toolkit. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 50: Article 101714.

Cronstedt, M. 2002. Prevention, preparedness, response, recovery an outdated concept? Australian Journal of Emergency Management 17(2): Article 10.

Cutter, S.L. 2016. Resilience to what? Resilience for whom?. The Geographical Journal 182(2): 110–113.

Cutter, S.L., J.A. Ahearn, B. Amadei, P. Crawford, E.A. Eide, G.E. Galloway Jr., M.F. Goodchild, and H.C. Kunreuther et al. 2013. Disaster resilience: A national imperative. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 55(2): 25–29.

Cutter, S.L., K.D. Ash, and C.T. Emrich. 2014. The geographies of community disaster resilience. Global Environmental Change 29: 65–77.

Cutter, S.L., L. Barnes, M. Berry, C. Burton, E. Evans, E. Tate, and J. Webb. 2008. A place-based model for understanding community resilience to natural disasters. Global Environmental Change 18(4): 598–606.

Davis, S., L. Horlings, T. Van Dijk, and H. Rau. 2021. Towards representative resilience: The power of culture to foster local resource representation. Local Environment 26(12): 1564–1585.

Deeming, H., M. Fordham, C. Kuhlicke, L. Pedoth, S. Schneiderbauer, and C. Shreve, eds. 2018. In Framing community disaster resilience: Resources, capacities, learning, and action . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Demiroz, F., and T.W. Haase. 2019. The concept of resilience: A bibliometric analysis of the emergency and disaster management literature. Local Government Studies 45(3): 308–327.

Fekete, A., G. Hufschmidt, and S. Kruse. 2014. Benefits and challenges of resilience and vulnerability for disaster risk management. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 5(1): 3–20.

Frankenberger, T., M. Mueller, T. Spangler, and S. Alexander. 2013. Community resilience: Conceptual framework and measurement feed the future learning agenda . Rockville, MD: Westat.

Gero, A., K. Méheux, and D. Dominey-Howes. 2011. Integrating community based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation: Examples from the Pacific. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 11(1): 101–113.

Gunderson, L., and C. Folke. 2005. Resilience: Now more than ever . Ecology and Society 10(2): Article 22.

Haase, T.W., W.J. Wang, and A.D. Ross. 2021. The six capacities of community resilience: Evidence from three small Texas communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Natural Hazards 109(1): 1097–1118.

Holling, C.S. 1973. Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 1–23.

Holling, C.S., and L.H. Gunderson. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems . Washington, DC: Island Press.

Hutter, G., and C. Kuhlicke. 2013. Resilience, talk and action: Exploring the meanings of resilience in the context of planning and institutions. Planning Practice and Research 28(3): 294–306.

Hyunjung, J. 2018. Linking risk reduction and community resilience . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Imperatives, S. 1987. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our common future. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf . Accessed 27 June 2021.

Imperiale, A.J., and F. Vanclay. 2016. Experiencing local community resilience in action: Learning from post-disaster communities. Journal of Rural Studies 47: 204–219.

Innocenti, D., and P. Albrito. 2011. Reducing the risks posed by natural hazards and climate change: The need for a participatory dialogue between the scientific community and policy makers. Environmental Science and Policy 14(7): 730–733.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2014. Annex II: Glossary. In Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part B: Regional aspects . Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. V.R. Barros, C.B. Field, D.J. Dokken, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, et al., 1757–1776. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2018. Special report on global warming of 1.5 °C. Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Jeans, H., S. Thomas, and G. Castillo. 2016. The future is a choice: The Oxfam framework and guidance for resilient development . Oxford: Routledge.

Keen, M., V.A. Brown, and R. Dyball. 2005. Social learning in environmental management: Towards a sustainable future . Oxford: Routledge.

Kelman, I. 2017. Linking disaster risk reduction, climate change, and the sustainable development goals. Disaster Prevention and Management 26(3): 254–258.

Kennedy, J., J. Ashmore, E. Babister, and I. Kelman. 2008. The meaning of “build back better”: Evidence from post-tsunami Aceh and Sri Lanka. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 16(1): 24–36.

Klein, R.J.T., R.J. Nicholls, and F. Thomalla. 2003. Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept?. Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards 5(1): 35–45.

Koliou, M., J.W. van de Lindt, T.P. McAllister, B.R. Ellingwood, M. Dillard, and H. Cutler. 2020. State of the research in community resilience: Progress and challenges. Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure 5(3): 131–151.

Lama, P.D., P. Becker, and J. Bergström. 2017. Scrutinizing the relationship between adaptation and resilience: Longitudinal comparative case studies across shocks in two Nepalese villages. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 23: 193–203.

Mabon, L. 2019. Enhancing post-disaster resilience by “building back greener”: Evaluating the contribution of nature-based solutions to recovery planning in Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan . Landscape and Urban Planning 187: Article 105118.

MacAskill, K., and P. Guthrie. 2014. Multiple interpretations of resilience in disaster risk management. Procedia Economics and Finance 18: 667–674.

MacKinnon, D., and K.D. Derickson. 2013. From resilience to resourcefulness: A critique of resilience policy and activism. Progress in Human Geography 37(2): 253–270.

Manyena, S.B. 2006. The concept of resilience revisited. Disasters 30(4): 434–450.

Manyena, S.B., G. O’Brien, P. O’Keefe, and J. Rose. 2011. Disaster resilience: A bounce back or bounce forward ability?. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 16(5): 417–424.

Matyas, D., and M. Pelling. 2015. Positioning resilience for 2015: The role of resistance, incremental adjustment and transformation in disaster risk management policy. Disasters 39(s1): s1–s18.

McDonnell, S. 2020. Other dark sides of resilience: Politics and power in community-based efforts to strengthen resilience. Anthropological Forum 30(1–2): 55–72.

McEntire, D.A., C. Fueller, C.W. Johnston, and R. Weber. 2002. A comparison of disaster paradigms: The search for a holistic policy guide. Public Administration Review 62(3): 267–281.

McEwen, L., A. Holmes, N. Quinn, and P. Cobbing. 2018. Learning for resilience: Developing community capital through flood action groups in urban flood risk settings with lower social capital. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 27: 329–342.

Meng, B., N. Li, and D. Fang. 2018. Attributes, challenges and future directions of community resilience. Frontiers Engineering 5(3): 307–323.

Mileti, D.S. 1999. Disasters by design: A reassessment of natural hazards in the United States . Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.

Mitchell, A. 2013. Risk and resilience: From good idea to good practice. In OECD Development Co-operation Working Papers . Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5k3ttg4cxcbp-en .

Mitchell, T., and K. Harris. 2012. Resilience: A risk management approach. ODI background note . London: Overseas Development Institute.

Mochizuki, J., A. Keating, W. Liu, S. Hochrainer-Stigler, and R. Mechler. 2018. An overdue alignment of risk and resilience? A conceptual contribution to community resilience. Disasters 42(2): 361–391.

Moser, S., S. Meerow, J. Arnott, and E. Jack-Scott. 2019. The turbulent world of resilience: Interpretations and themes for transdisciplinary dialogue. Climatic Change 153(1): 21–40.

Norris, F.H., S.P. Stevens, B. Pfefferbaum, K.F. Wyches, and R.L. Pfefferbaum. 2008. Community resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster readiness. American Journal of Community Psychology 41(1–2): 127–150.

O’Brien, G., and P. O’Keefe. 2013. The concept of resilience. In Managing adaptation to climate risk—Beyond fragmented responses , ed. G. O’Brien, and P. O’Keefe, 118–147. London: Routledge.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Oliva, S., and L. Lazzeretti. 2017. Adaptation, adaptability and resilience: The recovery of Kobe after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. European Planning Studies 25(1): 67–87.

Olwig, M.F. 2012. Multi-sited resilience: The mutual construction of “local” and “global” understandings and practices of adaptation and innovation. Applied Geography 33: 112–118.

Patel, S.S., M.B. Rogers, R. Amlôt, and G.J. Rubin. 2017. What do we mean by “community resilience”? A systematic literature review of how it is defined in the literature. PLoS Currents Disasters 9. https://doi.org/10.1371/currents.dis.db775aff25efc5ac4f0660ad9c9f7db2 .

Paton, D. 2006. Disaster resilience: Integrating individual, community, institutional and environmental perspectives. In Disaster resilience: An integrated approach , ed. D. Paton, and D. Johnston, 305–316. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.

Paton, D., and D. Johnston. 2017. Disaster resilience: An integrated approach , 2nd edn. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.

Reggiani, A., P. Nijkamp, and D. Lanzi. 2015. Transport resilience and vulnerability: The role of connectivity. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 81(C): 4–15.

Reghezza-Zitt, M., S. Rufat, G. Djament-Tran, A. Le Blanc, and S. Lhomme. 2012. What resilience is not: Uses and abuses. Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography . https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.25554 .

Reid, H., M. Alam, R. Berger, T. Cannon, S. Huq, and A. Milligan. 2009. Community-based adaptation to climate change: An overview. In Community-based adaptation to climate change , Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) series, no. 60, ed. H. Reid, T. Cannon, R. Berger, M. Alam, and A. Milligan, 11−33. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Rogers, P. 2011. Development of resilient Australia: Enhancing the PPRR approach with anticipation, assessment and registration of risks . Australian Journal of Emergency Management 26(1): Article 54.

Rubim, I.C., and M.R.S. Borges. 2017. The resilience and its dimensions. In Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) , 21–24 May 2017, Albi, France, 457–463.

Ruszczyk, H.A. 2019. Ambivalence towards discourse of disaster resilience. Disasters 43(4): 818–839.

Schipper, E.L.F., F. Thomalla, G. Vulturius, M. Davis, and K. Johnson. 2016. Linking disaster risk reduction, climate change and development. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment 7(2): 216–228.

Shaw, R. 2016. Community-based disaster risk reduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thomalla, F., T. Downing, E. Spanger-Siegfried, G. Han, and J. Rockström. 2006. Reducing hazard vulnerability: Towards a common approach between disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. Disasters 30(1): 39–48.

Tierney, K., and M. Bruneau. 2007. Conceptualizing and measuring resilience: A key to disaster loss reduction. TR News 250: 14–17.

Turner, B.L., R.E. Kasperson, P.A. Matson, J.J. McCarthy, R.W. Corell, L. Christensen, N. Eckley, and J.X. Kasperson et al. 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA 100(14): 8074–8079.

Twigg, J. 2007. Characteristics of a disaster-resilient community: A guidance note . London: Department for International Development (DFID).

Twigg, J. 2015. Disaster risk reduction. Good practice review 9 . London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Humanitarian Policy Group.

UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2019. Words into Action guidelines: Implementation guide for local disaster risk reduction and resilience strategies . Geneva: UNDRR.

UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2020. Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction: Implementing nature-based solutions for resilience. Bangkok, Thailand: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2021. Terminology. https://www.undrr.org/terminology . Accessed 18 April 2021.

UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). 2021. Climate change glossary, acronyms and terms ( Lexique du changement climatique, acronymes et termes ). https://unfccc.int/fr/process-and-meetings/the-convention/lexique-du-changement-climatique-acronymes-et-termes#a . Accessed 18 April 2021 (in French).

UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction). 2005. Hyogo framework for action 2005–2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. Extract from the final report of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction (A/CONF.206/6). Geneva: UNISDR.

UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction). 2015. Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015–2030 . Geneva: UNISDR.

United Nations. 2021. Sustainable development goals. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/fr/development-agenda/ . Accessed 27 June 2021.

Upadhyay, A., and A. Sa-ngiamwibool. 2021. A systematic literature review of community disaster resilience: Main and related research areas and agendas. Continuity and Resilience Review 3(2): 192–205.

Walker, B., C.S. Holling, S.R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems . Ecology and Society 9(2): Article 5.

Walker, J., and M. Cooper. 2011. Genealogies of resilience: From systems ecology to the political economy of crisis adaptation. Security Dialogue 42(2): 143–160.

Weichselgartner, J., and I. Kelman. 2015. Geographies of resilience: Challenges and opportunities of a descriptive concept. Progress in Human Geography 39(3): 249–267.

Williams, T.A., and D.A. Shepherd. 2016. Building resilience or providing sustenance: Different paths of emergent ventures in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Academy of Management Journal 59(6): 2069–2102.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Institut des Sciences de l’Environnement (ISE), Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, H3C 3P8, Canada

Marie-Hélène Graveline & Daniel Germain

Department of Geography, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, H3C 3P8, Canada

Daniel Germain

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marie-Hélène Graveline .

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Graveline, MH., Germain, D. Disaster Risk Resilience: Conceptual Evolution, Key Issues, and Opportunities. Int J Disaster Risk Sci 13 , 330–341 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-022-00419-0

Download citation

Accepted : 14 May 2022

Published : 21 June 2022

Issue Date : June 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-022-00419-0

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Disaster risk
• Sustainable development
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Inclusive disaster risk management: What have we learned?

Mirtha escobar, zoe elena trohanis.

Not everyone is affected equally by the intensifying disaster and climate risks across the globe.  Research from many different contexts and countries shows that poor and marginalized groups tend to suffer disproportionally from these hazards. Considering this reality, and with support from the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) , practitioners are embracing inclusive approaches to disaster risk management (DRM) that factor in and strive to address the heightened vulnerability of certain groups.

A new report from GFDRR takes stock of lessons from inclusive DRM projects across its portfolio, with an eye to applying the insights to our continued engagement in this sector. From FY 2016 through FY 2020, almost two-thirds of the GFDRR portfolio included elements that are widely understood to fall under the umbrella of inclusive DRM.  These are factors such as gender, disability, community resilience, and/or citizen engagement. Here are some of the lessons:

Including marginalized groups requires promoting opportunities, abilities, and dignity among these groups across all aspects of DRM policies and programs. It is impossible to reduce disaster risks for everyone if the needs of all population groups are not addressed.  While patterns that drive vulnerability to disaster risks can be tough to assess and quantify, the failure to do so can bear enormous social and economic costs. For instance, in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake that struck Nepal, 22% of women became economically inactive, compared with 8% of men.

Effectively including everyone in DRM policies and programs requires concerted efforts to understand and tackle the obstacles people face when interacting with their social and physical environments. Physical, financial, informational, attitudinal, institutional, and other barriers can prevent people from accessing critical markets, services, and public spaces with dignity. Shifting attention to these hurdles, rather than focusing on people’s abilities, enables policy-makers and governments to see marginalized groups as agents of change. In Indonesia, GFDRR is embracing this approach by supporting the incorporation of universal accessibility standards into the design of buildings in the province of Central Sulawesi.

Addressing the great diversity of people’s circumstances remains a challenge in achieving inclusive DRM. Through its grants, GFDRR has supported World Bank task teams and government counterparts in developing and implementing more inclusive approaches to DRM—from training programs to gender analyses, from guidance notes to actions on the ground. While our efforts have achieved important results, more remains to be done. The stocktaking exercise discussed in the new report identified several points we can improve—and could help peer organizations in the DRM community—such as promoting collaboration among practitioners, gender, and social inclusion experts. We also must ensure that monitoring and evaluation frameworks better track inclusion outputs and outcomes.

Developing a holistic approach to DRM, one in which we consider the full range of risks and factors that add to certain groups’ vulnerability, will be critically important. One way to make sure that we plan for more risks is to put citizens and communities—who know the dangers all too well—at the center of inclusive disaster-risk planning.  GFDRR has done this by supporting an effort to promote women’s participation in digital-mapping projects in Africa. The initiative, which has helped supply critical resilience data at the community level, has also reduced the digital gender divide in parts of the Continent. Still, to be fully inclusive, we must also count factors such as socioeconomic disparities, migratory flows, forced displacement, and the like.

In line with its 2021–2025 Strategy , GFDRR remains as committed as ever to ensuring that resilience-building efforts everywhere account for everyone: women and girls, the elderly, persons with disabilities, children, low-income families, and other vulnerable or marginalized people. Lessons from the stocktaking will shape our steps in advancing inclusive DRM. We invite you to share your ideas about how we can step up engagement in in this critical space.

Related links :

Inclusive Approaches to Disaster Risk Management — A Qualitative Review

GFDRR: Inclusive Disaster Risk Management & Gender Equality

Inclusive Resilience: Inclusion Matters for Resilience in South Asia

Gender-Responsive Disaster Preparedness and Recovery in the Caribbean: Desk Review

Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience: Existing Evidence

Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist

Lead Disaster Risk Management Specialist

Join the Conversation

• Share on mail
• comments added

Disaster Management Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on disaster management.

Nature has various manifestations both gentle as well as aggressive. We see how sometimes it is so calm while the other times it becomes fierce. The calm side is loved by everyone, of course, however, when the ferocious side is shown, devastation happens. As humans cannot control everything, certain things of nature are out of our control.

Similarly, when natural disasters happen, humans cannot control them. However, we can prevent them. In other words, whenever a calamitous situation arises that may disturb the life and ecosystem, we need emergency measures to save and preserve lives. As natural disaster are not predictable, they can take place anywhere at any time. To understand disaster management thoroughly, we need to first identify the types of disasters.

Types of Disasters

If we look at the disasters that have taken place earlier, we can easily say that nature is not merely responsible for them to happen. They happen due to other reasons too. This is why we have classified them in different categories. First comes the natural disasters which are caused by natural processes. They are the most dangerous disaster to happen which causes loss of life and damage to the earth. Some of the deadliest natural disasters are earthquakes , floods, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and more.

As no country is spared from any kind of disasters, India also falls in the same category. In fact, the geographical location of India makes it a very disaster-prone country. Each year, India faces a number of disasters like floods, earthquakes, tsunami, landslides, cyclones, droughts and more. When we look at the man-made disasters, India suffered the Bhopal Gas Tragedy as well as the plague in Gujarat. To stop these incidents from happening again, we need to strengthen our disaster management techniques to prevent destructive damage.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Disaster Management

Disaster management refers to the efficient management of resources and responsibilities that will help in lessening the impact of the disaster. It involves a well-planned plan of action so we can make effective efforts to reduce the dangers caused by the disaster to a minimum.

Most importantly, one must understand that disaster management does not necessarily eliminate the threat completely but it decreases the impact of the disaster. It focuses on formulating specific plans to do so. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in India is responsible for monitoring the disasters of the country. This organization runs a number of programs to mitigate the risks and increase the responsiveness.

Proper disaster management can be done when we make the citizens aware of the precautionary measures to take when they face emergency situations. For instance, everyone must know we should hide under a bed or table whenever there is an earthquake. Thus, the NDMA needs to take more organized efforts to decrease the damage that disasters are causing. If all the citizens learn the basic ways to save themselves and if the government takes more responsive measures, we can surely save a lot of life and vegetation.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [{ “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What are the types of disasters?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “There are essentially two types of disasters. One is natural disasters which include floods, earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruptions and more. The other is man-made disaster including oil spills, fires” } }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “How can we effectively manage disasters?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”:”We must make people aware of the consequences of disasters. Moreover, we can teach them actions and measures to take when they face emergency situations.”} }] }

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

Advancing social justice, promoting decent work ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations

Migrated Content

International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2022

It is not enough for an early warning system to correctly identify an incoming hazard, it must also ensure that the populations and sectors that are at risk can receive the alert, understand it, and most importantly, act on it.

13 October 2022

Related content

The ILO response to disasters

• Search Menu
• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• ESHRE Pages
• Mini-reviews
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Reasons to Publish
• Open Access
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Advertising
• Reprints and ePrints
• Sponsored Supplements
• Branded Books
• Journals Career Network
• About Human Reproduction
• About the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
• Editorial Board
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Contact ESHRE
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Introduction, the significance of establishing an effective emergency disaster management plan, navigating disaster with resourcefulness and adaptivity, vitrification strategy during disaster to mitigate the risk of compromised outcomes, prolonged incubation of oocytes post-warming to enable maturation, data availability, acknowledgements, authors’ roles, conflicts of interest, when disaster strikes: risk management and implementing emergency vitrification protocols in ivf laboratory crises.

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Kashish Sharma, Omar F Ammar, Juan J Fraire-Zamora, Julia Uraji, Andrew Thomson, Birol Aydin, Max Ezzati, Alessandra Alteri, George Liperis, When disaster strikes: risk management and implementing emergency vitrification protocols in IVF laboratory crises, Human Reproduction , 2024;, deae080, https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deae080

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Developing an emergency plan for IVF lab disasters.

Reproductive care is susceptible to interruptions which could potentially jeopardize the safety of patients and staff as well as reproductive material. Given the ongoing progression of climate change-related events, facilities should anticipate an increasing frequency of such disruptions and take proactive measures to address them ( Goldman et al. , 2022 ). Care provision within highly efficient fertility centres often goes unnoticed due to the seamless delivery of services. Nonetheless, this care involves meticulous orchestration, encompassing access to an adequate supply of medications, frequent monitoring by skilled personnel using state-of-the-art equipment, and essential infrastructure like electricity and running water. Furthermore, the laboratory operations require critical supply chains of plasticware and reagents as well as medical gases and liquid nitrogen. The vulnerability of medical-assisted reproduction (MAR) given the dependence on technology, transportation, and a substantial workforce is evident. The rapidity with which operations can be disrupted has become alarmingly evident, with factors such as natural disasters, manufacturing restrictions, travel limitations affecting patients, wars, and staffing shortages due to illness or access constraints posing significant challenges to the continuity of care as experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An example of such disruption occurred in the city of Zhengzhou, China, where record rainstorms caused severe flooding, traffic disruptions, and power outages in July 2021. The January edition of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) Journal Club discussed a retrospective study from Song et al. (2023) from the Reproductive Medicine Center of the First Affiliated Hospital where 1246 oocytes and embryos from all stages of pre-implantation development (D0–D5) of 155 patients were vitrified whilst the laboratory only had emergency power supply. The study assessed embryological, clinical, and birth outcomes deriving from four groups based on the stage of development during emergency vitrification: oocyte group, Day 0–Day 1 (D0–D1) group, Day 2–Day 3 (D2–D3) group, and Day 4–Day 5 (D4–D5) group; and compared outcomes from control groups of patients undergoing treatment without emergency vitrification from the same centre that were matched for confounders. The results indicated that emergency vitrification is a safe and effective protective measure applicable to oocytes and D0–D5 embryos. With these results in mind, the discussion focused on several key points including the necessity of having an effective emergency disaster management plan and emergency uninterrupted power supply (UPS) capable of accommodating vitrification for all extracted gametes and in vitro -generated embryos, the adaptations made to assure adequate resources were available to accommodate vitrification of all samples, the potential risks to gametes and embryos from amendments of vitrification protocols and time-frames as well as prolonging the culture of oocytes post-warming to compensate for early out of routine practice vitrification.

Adequate preparations for disaster events should be made to protect both patients and their reproductive tissue as well as staff. But how is a disaster defined? According to the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee (RTAC) of Australia, a disaster is defined as the following: (i) a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources. (ii) Though often caused by nature, disasters can have human origins ( Fertility Society of Australia Code of Practice for Assisted Reproductive Technology Units. Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee, 2016 ). All major scientific societies specializing in reproduction convey that establishing a comprehensive emergency disaster management plan is crucial for all IVF clinics. The combined committee opinion of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), and the Society of Reproductive Biologists and Technologists (SRBT) compels all centres providing reproductive care to implement an emergency preparedness plan comprised of the following principles: safety and protection of staff and patients; safety and preservation of fresh and cryopreserved human tissue; and protection of patient and clinic records as well as facility equipment ( Practice Committees of ASRM, SART, and SRBT, 2021 ). ESHRE has also set guidelines for the development and implementation of an emergency plan with specific procedures ( ESHRE Guideline Group on Good Practice in IVF Labs et al. , 2016 ).

The authors of the discussed article stressed the importance of ensuring that all clinics have a 6–8-h UPS capacity system in place. Recognizing the critical role of UPS, UPS systems stand as vital safeguards, particularly in the absence of backup generators, to sustain essential equipment during emergencies. However, their reliability demands thorough testing, validation, and vigilant record-keeping of longevity. Moreover, several other considerations are important to be incorporated into effective emergency disaster management planning. A comprehensive risk assessment is indispensable, guiding prioritization based on potential impacts and likelihoods. Clear communication protocols, both internal and external, are imperative for coordinated response efforts. Robust data backup and storage systems, coupled with regular staff training and emergency drills, fortify readiness. Collaboration with neighbouring clinics fosters resource sharing in crisis scenarios, underscoring the collective responsibility shared by all involved. Disaster preparedness must be ingrained into the culture of every IVF clinic, underscored by regulatory mandates and comprehensive training initiatives, ensuring that everyone, including embryologists, is equipped to navigate emergencies effectively. From maintaining ample cryopreservation supplies to crafting contingency plans tailored to specific disaster scenarios, proactive measures are essential to safeguard the integrity of the IVF process and the well-being of those it serves ( Dickey et al. , 2006 ). In the realm of MAR, meticulous planning and preparedness are paramount to ensure the safety and well-being of patients, staff, and the delicate biological materials involved. While plans are essential, their effectiveness hinges on the severity of the situation, necessitating clearly defined objectives focused on minimizing harm.

To ensure adequate consumables and reagents, the Embryologists of the First Affiliated Hospital reduced the volume of cryoprotectants and increased the number of embryos per vitrification straw. This strategic decision not only highlighted their proficiency in calculating the allocation of resources based on the quantity of gametes and embryos in culture but primarily their ability to remain composed and analytical under pressure. Traditionally, the skillset of embryologists has been focused on practical laboratory competencies, yet it is imperative to recognize that their role extends beyond mere technical procedures to ensuring lab functionality even in emergencies. Embryologists should also possess administrative and leadership capabilities, being able to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge, excel in team collaboration to optimize patient care, demonstrate a commitment to reflective learning, engage in active mentorship, and exhibit effective communication skills with both patients and colleagues ( Choucair et al. , 2021 ).

The field of embryology prioritizes the safety of biological materials above all else, a principle that remains constant regardless of the circumstances. Any laboratory limitations can be compensated by embryologists’ skills that only come with years of experience. Cryopreservation methods can vary depending on the type of cells involved, such as oocytes, zygotes, or embryos. The crucial factor for success lies in swift micro manipulation during cryopreservation. Success primarily hinges on the skills of embryologists during vitrification rather than the quantity of embryos on the device ( Ostler et al. , 2021 ). However, concerns arise regarding the reduction of media volume due to the risk of evaporation, with the degree of risk contingent upon laboratory conditions ( Mestres et al. , 2021 ). These factors are interconnected, with emergency situations often prompting shifts in considerations. The fundamental question arises: do we merely aim to preserve these materials, or do we seek to optimize their potential for the future? In scenarios where resources are limited, many embryologists prioritize material preservation. Yet, this dilemma underscores the pivotal role of lab quality management in embryology ( Olofsson et al. , 2013 ).

While most media and consumables have lengthy expiration dates, busy laboratories must maintain adequate stock levels, adding another layer of responsibility. Consequently, the critical question emerges: does an emergency justify compromising the safety of biological materials due to product shortages? Is this rationale sufficient for lab managers to reduce media volume or increase embryo numbers per straw? And what would the alternative solution be? Could only a proportion of gametes and embryos be considered to be vitrified per patient? This presents an emergency within an emergency, demanding careful consideration. The authors made the decision to not leave any gametes or embryos behind and in hindsight, this proved to be the correct choice. Looking ahead, the impact of automation on embryologists’ skills during emergency scenarios warrants consideration. As technology continues to advance, it is crucial to assess how automation may hinder embryologists’ capabilities in managing such crises effectively.

Another noteworthy example of strategic planning by embryologists, as illustrated in the discussed study, involved reserving Day 0/Day 1 embryos for vitrification after the completion of vitrification for the rest of the developmental stages, ensuring a higher proportion of embryos with clear pronuclear (PN) formation or completed first division. The authors decided upon this strategy to avoid potential vitrification-induced injury risks when these developmental checkpoints have not been completed. There are only a few reports on emergency vitrification following a disaster ( Dickey et al. , 2006 ; Ishihara and Yoshimura, 2011 ; Goldman et al. , 2013 , 2022 ). Only sparse information is available on the emergency vitrification of oocytes and zygotes and the clinical effectiveness and safety of emergency vitrification. Following fertilization, a cascade of crucial cellular transformations takes place. Meiosis II completion, PN formation, and S phase unfold within ∼14 h post-fertilization, demanding undisturbed orchestration to ensure successful progression ( Balakier et al. , 1993 ). Moreover, the onset of M phase, commencing around 20 h post-fertilization, introduces the delicate intricacies of mitotic spindle dynamics, known to be sensitive to temperature variations. Intriguingly, the potential disruption of calcium oscillations by vitrification adds another layer of complexity to the meticulous handling of the zygote ( Whitaker, 2006 ). Optimal timing for cryopreservation, notably during the G2 phase, ideally occurs 18–20 h post-insemination, as evidenced by recent investigations ( Makieva et al. , 2023 ). Zygote cryopreservation has become a standard practice in countries governed by specific legal frameworks such as Germany. Even though many clinical settings still utilize slow freezing as the methodology of choice when cryopreserving zygotes due to the perceived ease of handling, particularly when dealing with many cells, comparative studies have delineated the clear advantages of vitrification ( Golakov et al. , 2018 ; Al-Hasani et al. , 2007 ).

Freezing of immature oocytes is not well understood. The authors of the discussed article adopted a prolonged incubation time post-warming of oocytes (4–5 h) to enable oocyte maturation and compensate for the emergency oocyte retrieval and vitrification of oocytes ahead of their established protocols, with ICSI taking place at 40–41 h post hCG trigger as per their routine practice. Their findings showing comparable clinical outcomes with controls suggest that the process of oocyte vitrification may be performed routinely within any timeframe and regardless of maturation status, although there might be potential risks associated with oocytes not successfully completing cytoplasmic maturation.

Premature nuclear maturation could impede cytoplasmic maturation, thereby diminishing the oocyte’s potential for fertilization and subsequent development ( Watson, 2007 ). Disparity between nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation may occur where the oocyte displays the former, but the latter may not yet be achieved. There are unknown factors present within the follicular fluid that mediate optimal cytoplasmic and nuclear maturation in vivo . It is thought that sterols may act as mediators for oocyte maturation and that their absence within in vitro culture systems may contribute to the reduced potential of in vitro matured oocytes and subsequent embryos ( Byskov et al. , 2002 ). Furthermore in vitro maturation (IVM) may result in abnormal meiotic spindle and chromosome configurations ( Li et al. , 2006 ; Requena et al. , 2009 ). Additionally, gene expression may be altered, necessitating long-term monitoring of the health of children born. The results of IVM have been reassuring in providing similar safety and efficacy compared to IVF in certain patient groups ( Vuong et al. , 2018 ), but it must be noted that the IVM media composition in specialized centres practicing IVM is different to conventional culture media.

Drawing from lessons learned, it is imperative for MAR clinics to anticipate and prepare for disasters. This entails not only ensuring UPS, but also implementing comprehensive emergency preparedness plans in accordance with established guidelines from governing bodies. The strategic thinking of embryologists and decision-making emphasizes the need for training in emergency scenarios to safeguard the integrity of biological materials and optimize outcomes. Challenges remain, particularly concerning the balance between preserving biological materials and ensuring optimal conditions for their future use. Ethical considerations, such as the potential risks and the long-term health implications for offspring, underscore the complexity of decision-making in such situations. Ultimately, proactive planning, collaboration, and ongoing evaluation are essential to navigate the challenges posed by disruptions in reproductive care. By prioritizing patient safety, staff preparedness, and the integrity of biological materials, ART facilities can mitigate risks and uphold the highest standards of care even in the face of adversity.

No datasets were generated or analysed in the current manuscript.

The authors thank all the participants of the ESHRE journal.

K.S., O.F.A, J.J.F-Z., J.U., and G.L conceptualized, organized, and moderated the discussion; K.S. led the discussion; A.T., B.A., M.E., and A.A. contributed to the discussion as experts; O.F.A. prepared the graphical abstract; G.L. drafted the manuscript incorporating expert comments. All authors provided critical revisions to the manuscript/graphical abstract/and approved the final version.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

All the authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Al-Hasani S , Ozmen B , Koutlaki N , Schoepper B , Diedrich K , Schultze-Mosgau A.   Three years of routine vitrification of human zygotes: is it still fair to advocate slow-rate freezing?   Reprod Biomed Online   2007 ; 14 : 288 – 293 .

Google Scholar

Balakier H , MacLusky NJ , Casper RF.   Characterization of the first cell cycle in human zygotes: implications for cryopreservation . Fertil Steril   1993 ; 59 : 359 – 365 .

Byskov AG , Andersen CY , Leonardsen L.   Role of meiosis activating sterols, MAS, in induced oocyte maturation . Mol Cell Endocrinol   2002 ; 187 : 189 – 196 .

Choucair F , Younis N , Hourani A.   The value of the modern embryologist to a successful IVF system: revisiting an age-old question . Middle East Fertil Soc J   2021 ; 26 : 15 .

Dickey RP , Lu PY , Sartor BM , Dunaway HE Jr , Pyrzak R , Klumpp AM.   Steps taken to protect and rescue cryopreserved embryos during Hurricane Katrina . Fertil Steril   2006 ; 86 : 732 – 734 .

ESHRE Guideline Group On Good Practice In IVF Labs ; De los Santos MJ , Apter S , Coticchio G , Debrock S , Lundin K , Plancha CE , Prados F , Rienzi L , Verheyen G  et al.    Revised guidelines for good practice in IVF laboratories (2015) . Hum Reprod   2016 ; 31 : 685 – 686 .

Fertility Society of Australia Code of Practice for Assisted Reproductive Technology Units. Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee . Technical Bulletin 9 , 2016 . https://www.fertilitysociety.com.au/wp-content/uploads/RTAC-Technical-Bulletin-Number-9.pdf (20 March 2024, date last accessed).

Golakov M , Depenbusch M , Schultze-Mosgau A , Schoepper B , Hajek J , Neumann K , Griesinger G.   What is the net effect of introducing vitrification for cryopreservation of surplus 2PN oocytes in an IVF program?   Arch Gynecol Obstet   2018 ; 297 : 529 – 537 .

Goldman KN , McCaffrey C , Ghosh M , Adler A , Chin A , Grifo JA.   No embryos left behind: emergent vitrification of 90 embryos during Hurricane sandy (HS) . Fertil Steril   2013 ; 100 : S182 .

Goldman KN , McCaffrey C , Riley J , Jungheim E , Grifo JA.   Disaster preparedness in assisted reproductive technology . Fertil Steril   2022 ; 118 : 230 – 238 .

Ishihara O , Yoshimura Y.   Damages at Japanese assisted reproductive technology clinics by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake of 2011 . Fertil Steril   2011 ; 95 : 2568 – 2570 .

Li Y , Feng HL , Cao YJ , Zheng GJ , Yang Y , Mullen S , Critser JK , Chen ZJ.   Confocal microscopic analysis of the spindle and chromosome configurations of human oocytes matured in vitro . Fertil Steril   2006 ; 85 : 827 – 832 .

Makieva S, Stähli C, Xie M, Gil AV, Sachs MK, Leeners B. The impact of zygote vitrification timing on pregnancy rate in frozen-thawed IVF/ICSI cycles . Front Cell Dev Biol   2023 ; 11 : 1095069 .

Mestres E , García-Jiménez M , Casals A , Cohen J , Acacio M , Villamar A , Matia-Algué Q , Calderón G , Costa-Borges N.   Factors of the human embryo culture system that may affect media evaporation and osmolality . Hum Reprod   2021 ; 36 : 605 – 613 .

Olofsson JI , Banker MR , Sjoblom LP.   Quality management systems for your in vitro fertilization clinic’s laboratory: why bother?   J Hum Reprod Sci   2013 ; 6 : 3 – 8 .

Ostler T , Woolley TE , Swann K , Thomson A , Priddle H , Palmer G , Kaouri K.   Vitrifying multiple embryos in different arrangements does not alter the cooling rate . Cryobiology   2021 ; 103 : 22 – 31 .

Practice Committees of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRT), the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), and the Society of Reproductive Biologists and Technologists (SRBT) . Development of an emergency plan for in vitro fertilization programs: a committee opinion . Fertil Steril   2021 ; 115 : 870 – 873 .

Requena A , Bronet F , Guillén A , Agudo D , Bou C , García-Velasco JA.   The impact of in-vitro maturation of oocytes on aneuploidy rate . Reprod Biomed Online   2009 ; 18 : 777 – 783 .

Song W , Zhang F , Wang Y , Shi H , Sun N , Jin H , Wang X , Guo Y , Hu L , Zhai J  et al.    Effective protection: the embryonic development and clinical outcomes of emergency vitrification of 1246 oocytes and Day 0–Day 5 embryos in a natural disaster . Hum Reprod   2023 ; 38 : 2412 – 2421 .

Vuong LN , Ho VNA , Ho TM , Dang VQ , Phung TH , Giang NH , Le AH , Pham TD , Wang R , Norman RJ  et al.    Effectiveness and safety of in vitro maturation of oocytes versus in vitro fertilisation in women with high antral follicle count: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial . BMJ Open   2018 ; 8 : e023413 .

Watson AJ.   Oocyte cytoplasmic maturation: a key mediator of oocyte and embryo developmental competence . J Anim Sci   2007 ; 85 : E1 – 3 .

Whitaker M.   Calcium at fertilization and in early development . Physiol Rev   2006 ; 86 : 25 – 88 .

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1460-2350
• Copyright © 2024 European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

UNOPS signs MoU with Bangladesh to strengthen collaboration on disaster risk reduction

D HAKA, April 24 -- The Department of Disaster Management (DDM) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen collaboration on disaster risk reduction initiatives in Bangladesh.

The MOU was signed on Wednesday by Md Mijanur Rahman, Director-General of the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) under under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief and Sudhir Muralidharan, Country Manager of UNOPS Bangladesh in the presence of the representatives from DDM and UNOPS.

The DG of the Disaster Management Department presided over the ceremony, emphasizing the shared commitment to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and fostering an empowered and Smart Bangladesh.

Environment Minister calls for unified action to safeguard Ganges River dolphin

With its infrastructure and procurement expertise, UNOPS will support DDM in rehabilitating critical infrastructure, providing emergency supplies and establishing robust field operations.

Additionally, specialized assistance will be extended in areas such as gender integration, stakeholder engagement and human-centered design.

Mijanur Rahman emphasized that this partnership, which aligns with Bangladesh's goal of reducing disaster risks, comes at a crucial time.

"With Bangladesh being one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, experiencing an average of 7-10 tropical cyclones annually, and with over 60% of its land vulnerable to flooding, the collaboration with UNOPS is essential. This collaboration will enhance institutional capacity, implement innovative solutions, and facilitate knowledge sharing, fortifying Bangladesh's resilience against disasters and safeguarding vulnerable communities. Together, we can create a safer and more resilient future for all."

Sudhir Muralidharan expressed optimism about the partnership, stating, "Today marks a significant milestone in our joint efforts to build resilience and strengthen disaster preparedness in Bangladesh.

"This MOU between UNOPS and the Department of Disaster Management reflects our shared commitment to safeguarding communities across the country from the increasing impacts of climate change and natural hazards."

"Through this partnership, we aim to leverage UNOPS' expertise in infrastructure, procurement and project management to support the Department in developing resilient infrastructure, fortifying emergency response capacities and rolling out innovative technologies. Our complementary strengths can pave the way for a more proactive, coordinated and holistic approach to disaster management."

The MoU establishes a framework of cooperation and collaboration between UNOPS and DDM in various areas of common interest.

Bangladesh pledges to create a resilient world for all: Saber

Areas of Cooperation:

The cooperation aims to develop and implement plans aligning with government DRR policies, priorities and the Sendai Framework for DRR, enhance institutional capacity for disaster preparedness, coordinate efforts for pre and post-disaster situations, craft guidelines in line with international standards, explore innovative DRR solutions, and foster knowledge sharing to implement best practices, ensuring comprehensive disaster resilience in Bangladesh.

The partnership upholds the core principles of the Sendai Framework, prioritizing localized, inclusive and whole-of-society approaches to reduce disaster risks, minimize losses and safeguard human well-being.

By uniting DDM's mandate and UNOPS' technical strengths, the collaboration will ensure Bangladesh is well-equipped to anticipate, respond to, and recover effectively from cyclones, floods, and other hazards exacerbated by climate change.

This strategic alliance represents a significant milestone in fostering a partnership that aligns with the global 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from United News of Bangladesh.

Content Search

Switzerland

Programme Officer (Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation)

• International Organization for Migration

Position Title: Programme Officer (Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation)

Job Code: VN 2024 240

Duty Station: To be determined

Classification: Professional Staff, Grade P3

Type of Appointment: Fixed term, one year with possibility of extension

Estimated Start Date: As soon as possible

Closing Date: 29 April 2024

Established in 1951, IOM is a Related Organization of the United Nations, and as the leading UN agency in the field of migration, works closely with governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental partners. IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.

IOM is committed to a diverse and inclusive work environment. Read more about diversity and inclusion at IOM at www.iom.int/diversity .

Applications are welcome from first- and second-tier candidates, particularly qualified female candidates as well as applications from the non-represented member countries of IOM. For all IOM vacancies, applications from qualified and eligible first-tier candidates are considered before those of qualified and eligible second-tier candidates in the selection process.

For the purpose of this vacancy, the following are considered first-tier candidates:

• Internal candidates
• Candidates from the following non-represented member states:

Antigua and Barbuda; Barbados; Botswana; Cabo Verde; Comoros; Congo

(the); Cook Islands; Dominica; Fiji; Grenada; Guinea-Bissau; Holy See;

Iceland; Kiribati; Lao People's Democratic Republic (the); Madagascar;

Marshall Islands; Micronesia (Federated States of); Namibia; Nauru;

Palau; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Sao Tome and Principe; Solomon Islands; Suriname; The Bahamas; Tonga; Tuvalu; Uzbekistan; Vanuatu

Second-tier candidates include:

All external candidates, except candidates from non-represented member states.

IOM has been working on disaster risk reduction, human mobility, and climate change for over 30 years. IOM’s preparedness, risk reduction, and climate change adaptation activities seek to bolster local and national initiatives to prevent and prepare for disasters and related population movements and foster post-disaster recovery solutions and resilience-building.

In line with IOM’s Strategic Plan 2024-2028, IOM’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation programming is informed by the following key objectives:

• Saving Lives and Protecting People on the Move- IOM puts the safety, dignity, and protection of people first in the most challenging crisis response contexts in the world. Guided by humanitarian principles and commitment to the centrality of protection, IOM will harness its operational, multisectoral expertise –specifically emergency preparedness, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation – and its presence, access, and proximity to communities to engage with authorities and local stakeholders to deliver timely, comprehensive, and people-centred responses that address needs at individual, community and systemic levels.
• Diving Solutions to Displacement - IOM reduces the risks and impacts of climate change, environmental degradation, conflict, and instability for communities affected by or at risk of displacement. Where disasters and climate change are driving displacement and mobility, IOM will provide solutions for people who need to move, for people who are already on the move, and for people who want to stay. Preparedness, risk reduction, early warning systems and anticipatory action will be used to enhance the resilience of affected communities. This will include scaled-up action on localized climate change adaptation and supporting States and communities to make successful use of the new Loss and Damage Fund, including for displacement in the context of climate change.

Under the overall supervision of the Head of Preparedness and Climate Change Adaptation Division and the direct supervision of the Senior Emergency and Preparedness Officer, the Programme Officer (Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation) will provide expert technical support, advice, and oversight on Disaster Risk Reduction-CCA tool development, training, capacity development and overall knowledge management on DRR-CCA. The post will be situated in HQ but will include field travel and regional or country office support as required. This position will work closely with the other units within the PCCA division, with all DHRR divisions, the Climate Action Division, the Global Data Institute, as well as with Emergency and Post-Crisis and Migration, Environment and Climate Change regional thematic specialists and their teams.

Core Functions / Responsibilities:

• Provide substantive support to DRR-CCA programming initiatives in IOM at the HQ/Regional/Country Office level, including for the implementation and development of new and active programming, and for emergency responses via remote technical and coordination support and field-level deployments.
• Advocate and provide advice for the mainstreaming of DRR in IOM policies/fundraising appeals and inter-agency strategies and develop capacity for ongoing DRR-CCA projects and programming.
• Participate in operationalizing the Climate Mobility Roadmap and related programming efforts in coordination with the Climate Adaptation Division (CAD).
• Support coordination and IOM technical leadership within inter-agency and bilateralDRR-CCA forums and initiatives, including but not limited to: the Capacity for Disaster Reduction Initiative (CADRI) partnership; the biennial Global Platform for DRR; the Early Warnings for All Initiative; the UN Senior Leadership Group for DRR for Resilience; the Center of Excellence for Disaster and Climate Resilience; et al.
• Promote cross-sectoral and integrated programming approaches in collaboration with IOM’s Humanitarian Operations Division to ensure overt linkages between DRR-CCA-human mobility with IOM’s sectoral response interventions, including in relation to the SG Action Agenda for Internal Displacement/durable solutions, WASH, protection, CCCM Health, Shelter & Settlements, Livelihoods and peace and recovery programming.
• Develop and ensure the organization of dedicated DRR and CCA related trainings for HQ, regional, country office staff.
• In coordination with the Preparedness Unit, support and advise IOM regional and country offices for the preparation of disaster response, preparedness, and disaster risk reduction policies, in line with IOM’s policies and within the context of existing government and UN policy frameworks.
• Contribute to the development of DRR related global, regional, and country-level strategies, emergency appeals-annual crisis response plans, operational and programme updates.
• Participate in and contribute to the formulation of IOM specific disaster risk reduction networking and knowledge-sharing mechanisms.
• Establish and strengthen donor relationships with core DRR and CCA focused entities and governments at IOM HQ level in coordination with the Resources Mobilization Division, Private Sector Partnerships, regional and country office focal points.
• Monitor, analyse, assess, and advise on DRR and CCA related humanitarian developments,disaster relief/management or emergency situations. Substantively contribute to UN system-wide DRR-CCA initiatives and reporting.
• Perform such other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

• Master’s degree in DRR, Climate Change, Engineering, Emergency Management, Social Sciences, Environment, International Relations, or a related field from an accredited academic institution with five years of relevant professional experience; or
• University degree in the above fields with seven years of relevant professional experience.
• Work experience in emergency situations (complex emergency or disaster response) at an international level is required;
• Demonstrated experience in humanitarian affairs, emergency preparedness, crisis/emergency relief management, rehabilitation, climate change adaptation, planned relocation, housing, land and property issues, development, or other related areas desired;
• Demonstrated experience in fundraising for complex programmes; ability and experience in the coordination of inter-sectoral discussions, assessment missions and promotion of integration and complementarity of effort.
• Demonstrated experience producing and delivering capacity development programmes;
• Knowledge and experience of working with humanitarian coordination mechanisms, including Humanitarian Country Teams, Inter-Cluster Coordination Groups and Clusters;
• Previous experience in a similar capacity with humanitarian or normative agencies, in particular within the UN Common System is desirable;
• Knowledge of humanitarian delivery considerations, including ensuring accountability to affected people.
• Ability to conceptualize and strategically analyse capacity, including articulation of the humanitarian dimension of complex issues that require coordination within a UN response.
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and judgment in applying technical expertise to resolve awide range of complex issues/problems.
• Proven ability to create networks and build relationships in conflict-affected, dynamic settings with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Speaks and writes clearly and effectively in English; tailors language, tone, style, and format to match audience; demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed.
• Proven high-level representation skills- speaking/presenting at meetings and providing situational analysis.
• Proven capacity to work effectively in small teams.
• Ability to work under pressure and deliver to deadlines, while maintaining the highest level of accuracy;
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to prioritize multiple tasks seamlessly in a dynamic environment;
• Able to think proactively as well as adopt an operational & hands-on attitude;• Proactive teamwork and consultation capacities;
• Excellent communication and writing skills.

IOM’s official languages are English, French, and Spanish. All staff members are required to be fluent in one of the three languages.

For this position, fluency in English is required (oral and written). Working knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish) is an advantage.

Proficiency of language(s) required will be specifically evaluated during the selection process, which may include written and/or oral assessments.

The domicile duty station is not determined at this time, however, it will be a Family Duty Station.

Accredited Universities are the ones listed in the UNESCO World Higher Education Database ( https://whed.net/home.php ).

Required Competencies:

Values - all IOM staff members must abide by and demonstrate these five values:

• Inclusion and respect for diversity : Respects and promotes individual and cultural differences. Encourages diversity and inclusion.
• Integrity and transparency: Maintains high ethical standards and acts in a manner consistent with organizational principles/rules and standards of conduct.
• Professionalism: Demonstrates ability to work in a composed, competent and committed manner and exercises careful judgment in meeting day-to-day challenges.
• Courage: Demonstrates willingness to take a stand on issues of importance.
• Empathy: Shows compassion for others, makes people feel safe, respected, and fairly treated.

Core Competencies – Behavioural indicators level 2

• Teamwork: Develops and promotes effective collaboration within and across units to achieve shared goals and optimize results.
• Delivering results: Produces and delivers quality results in a service-oriented and timely manner. Is action oriented and committed to achieving agreed outcomes.
• Managing and sharing knowledge: Continuously seeks to learn, share knowledge and innovate.
• Accountability: Takes ownership for achieving the Organization’s priorities and assumes responsibility for own actions and delegated work.
• Communication: Encourages and contributes to clear and open communication. Explains complex matters in an informative, inspiring and motivational way.

Managerial Competencies – Behavioural Indicators level 2

• Leadership: Provides a clear sense of direction, leads by example and demonstrates the ability to carry out the Organization’s vision. Assists others to realize and develop their leadership and professional potential.
• Empowering others: Creates an enabling environment where staff can contribute their best and develop their potential.
• Building Trust: Promotes shared values and creates an atmosphere of trust and honesty.
• Strategic thinking and vision: Works strategically to realize the Organization’s goals and communicates a clear strategic direction.
• Humility: Leads with humility and shows openness to acknowledging own shortcomings.

IOM’s competency framework can be found at this link.

https://www.iom.int/sites/default/files/about-iom/iom_revised_competency_framework_external.p df

Competencies will be assessed during a competency-based interview.

Internationally recruited professional staff are required to be mobile.

Any offer made to the candidate in relation to this vacancy notice is subject to funding confirmation.

This selection process may be used to staff similar positions in various duty stations. Recommended candidates endorsed by the Appointments and Postings Board will remain eligible to be appointed in a similar position for a period of 24 months.

The list of NMS countries above includes all IOM Member States which are non-represented in the Professional Category of staff members.

Appointment will be subject to certification that the candidate is medically fit for appointment, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements, and background verification and security clearances. Subject to certain exemptions, vaccination against COVID-19 will in principle be required for individuals hired on or after 15 November 2021. This will be verified as part of the medical clearance process.

Vacancies close at 23:59 local time Geneva, Switzerland on the respective closing date. No late applications will be accepted.

How to apply

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications HERE , by 29 April 2024 at the latest, referring to this advertisement.

IOM only accepts duly completed applications submitted through the IOM e-Recruitment system. The online tool also allows candidates to track the status of their application.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

For further information please refer to: www.iom.int/recruitment

Posting period:

From 16.04.2024 to 29.04.2024

IOM does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process (application, interview, processing, training, or other fee). IOM does not request any information related to bank accounts.

Related Content

World + 15 more

Widespread parts of Asia and Africa reel under extreme weather

Disaster management reference handbook - lao pdr (may 2024), activation d’action anticipatoire haïti, novembre 2023.

Zimbabwe + 32 more

Scaling up anticipatory actions for food security: Anticipatory Action Year in Focus 2023 (April 2024)