DRR Community Voices

The DRR Community Voices share personal stories and perspectives from the disaster risk reduction trenches on reducing risk and building resilience.

  • Our posts from both practitioners and academics reach a global audience and can influence policy, practices and approaches.
  • We invite you to propose your own blog and submit it for review.

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  • Most articles can be republished under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO Deed.
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Colorful collage of smiling multiethnic people in vertical panels.
Blog
Katherine Sotomayor Tanjir Hossain
Sendai Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism: Turning participation into action for disaster risk reduction
Launched in 2018, SEM was created in response to a simple realisation: disaster risk reduction cannot succeed, and the targets of the Sendai Framework cannot be achieved, without the meaningful and structured inclusion of all-of-society actors.
Facade of small business buildings in the old town district of Granada, Spain.
Blog
Ignasi Fontanals
Small businesses are key to building resilient cities
Can cities and SMEs can access the operational resilience tools – continuity plans, crisis exercises, risk assessments and risk transfer approaches – that have traditionally been available mainly to large companies and major consultancies?
Green finance focuses on climate-conscious investments, driving sustainable economic development while balancing business growth with environmental responsibility.
Blog
Dr Neekhil Bhowoniah
Climate finance integrity is the next frontier in disaster preparedness
Climate finance integrity ensures that funding reaches frontline disaster preparedness efforts. Using Mauritius as a case study, this post highlights how centralised financial bottlenecks stall local infrastructure delivery, leaving communities exposed.
Pedestrians and workers walking in shade under scorching sun
Blog
Shubham Kashyap Payal Bhatnagar
As temperatures increase in India, so must the commitment to thermal comfort
The urgency of embedding heat resilience into urban planning was underscored on Heat Action Day (2 June), when stakeholders across government and civil society highlighted the need for coordinated action.
People are evacuated from the burning building
Interview
Dr Sofia Karma
Building resilience by design: from wildfires to broader challenges
PreventionWeb spoke with Dr Karma, Director of the European Centre for Forest Fires (ECFF), about her career path, ECFF’s work and her perspective on growing wildfire risks and related challenges.
Photo of interior space for meetings
Blog
Rhiannon Hawkins Carina Fearnley
Unifying climate and disaster risk management: Linking UNDRR and the UNFCCC through the Nairobi Work Programme to strengthen adaptation
The sixty-fourth session of the Subsidiary Bodies under the UNFCCC SB64, held in Bonn, Germany, from 8–18 June 2026, offered encouraging examples of dialogue and collaboration on climate change impacts.
A plague of locusts swarm across the country side near Port Headland in Western Australia.
Interview
Life as a locust officer: safeguarding crops and communities from desert locust
In this interview with PreventionWeb, Ali Babalifashki, Desert Locust Information Officer at the Plant Protection Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, shares insights from the field on managing locust risks and protecting vulnerable communities.
Citizen in France testing a flood VR tool
Interview
Pierre Scholl Yacine Haddou Matthieu Hervé
Virtual reality for flood risk communication: Making rare events tangible
By making rare and complex events easier to visualise, this case study from France shows how tools that combine virtual reality and special effects improve public understanding and dialogue on flood risk.