Workshop on Capacity Development for Making Cities Resilient to Disasters Workshop - Lebanon

Training Concept Note by UNISDR

Over the past 20 years disasters have affected 4.4 billion people, caused USD 2 trillion of damage and killed 1.3 million people. Natural disasters affected people living in developing countries and the most vulnerable communities within those countries. Over 95 percent of people killed by natural disasters are from developing countries.

Current and future challenges of mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in development planning demand new approaches, mechanisms, sets of skills and competencies that need to be identified and strengthened in order to form the basis of increasing public demand and political commitment to local actions and budget allocations. Lack of appropriate knowledge on the subject, lack of government commitment and the absence of mainstreaming in current organizational and government strategy are key existing challenges.

Urban risk is continually increasing. It has been estimated that, more than 50 per cent of the world's population is living in urban areas. Urbanization is taking place at an unprecedented rate. In the next 20 years, the world’s population is predicted to increase by an additional two billion. By 2030 more than 60% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, with record concentrations in large urban conglomerations and megacities in the developing world. Vulnerability of cities to disasters is on the rise especially as poor people settle in high-risk urban areas. Unfortunately, planning and development of cities has given little consideration to the consequences of hazards such as earthquakes, hydro-meteorological risks and others. The implication of this reality is the need for countries to focus their collective energies to create a safer world for urban dwellers and develop a series of innovative approaches to meet this challenge.

In this regard, building resilience and adapting to climate change is crucial for cities. Efforts to build resilience in cities can benefit from integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation with existing efforts in disaster risk reduction and other similar planning processes. This capacity building training workshop, while promoting the importance of effective climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, will provide:

i) an opportunity for cities and local governments to enhance capacities in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction with a focus on countries/ cities Resilience Action Plans development and implementation.

ii) a platform to exchange in-depth learning from experts in the related area and to share good practices among participants

iii) a venue for city-to-city cooperation in building resilience in cities by integrating disaster risk principles into local DRR and CCA planes, programmes and initiatives

General Briefing about the Training sessions

Session 1:Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk reduction 2015-2030. Finding a common language and Introduction of trends in urban risk reduction

Session 2:Introducing Making Cities Resilient (MCR) Global Campaign and Campaign Tools. MCR Campaign 10 Essentials with Case Studies.

Session 3: Applying the MCR Tools for Assessment and Diagnosis.Using LGSAT and Cities Resilience Scorecard Tools

Session 4: Applying the MCR Tools for Assessment and Diagnosis.Using LGSAT and Cities Resilience Scorecard Tools

Session 5: Mainstreaming DRR into Sectoral Programmes for Socio-Economic Development with Case Studies on Governance,Finance, Infrastructure,Climate Change Adaptation, and Health,sectorsCase Studies

Session 6: Developing and Implementing Safe and Resilient Country/City Action Plan

Session 7: Mainstreaming DRR into Sectoral Programmes for Socio-Economic Development with Case Studies on Housing & Land Use Planing, Ecosystems & Environment, Livelihoods

Session 8: Exercise - Working Group Discussion to develop Draft version of Safe and Resilient Country/City Action Plan

Session 9: City Action Plan Monitoring, Evaluation and Follow Up.

Session 10: Exercise - Working Group Discussion to develop Draft version of Safe and Resilient Country/City Action Plan.

Session 11: Exercise - Working Group Discussion to develop Draft version of Safe and Resilient Country/City Action Plan.

Session 12: Exercise - Working Group Discussionon Developing a Strategy with list of next steps needed for further finalisation of the draft Action Plan, ensuring its endorsement and effective implementation in participating cities.