26
Making Cities Resilient – My City is Getting Ready!
Essential 1: Institutional and Administrative Framework “Put in place an organisation and coordination to understand and reduce disaster risk, based on participation of citizen groups and civil society. Build local alliances. Ensure that all departments understand their role in disaster risk reduction and preparedness.”
Why?
Queson City organization for Disaster Risk Management
The tasks of the coordination entity/office may include preparation of awareness campaigns, coordination of risk assessments and disaster risk reduction plans, ensuring that resilience planning is part of the city´s development practices, its strategies and projects for resource mobilization, and tracking of progress.
To be effective and contribute to a city’s development and safety, managing disaster risk and understanding the potential threats of complex events requires a holistic approach and must include the involvement of local government decision makers, city officials and departments, academia, business and citizens groups. Experience gained through the Hyogo Framework for Action has shown that appropriate policies and an institutional framework are preconditions for decision making and sound disaster risk reduction actions. Accompanied by decentralized power and resource allocations and the participation of all major groups and actors in planning, implementation and monitoring mechanisms, this Framework contributes to the city’s development objectives and sustainability.
What? Establish or strengthen the city-level institutional and coordination capacity • Assign a lead entity or establish a designated office within the city administration to lead a coordination mechanism among departments and other actors. • Define and review, on a regular basis, the roles and responsibilities of departments and services involved; clarify the limitation of authority of each. • Involve different actors, volunteers, NGOs, academia, the business community and encourage the involvement of communitybased organisations as early as possible in the process.