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.

Republishing guidelines

  • Please contact us if you wish to republish a blog article.
  • Most articles can be republished under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO Deed.
  • You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
  • You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
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Group of traditional indian women wearing colorful saree join hands with each other.
Blog
Sanjay Kumar Srivastava
Building community resilience from the ground up
Operating extensively in flood- and climate-vulnerable districts, JEEViKA demonstrates how livelihoods programmes, when rooted in community institutions, can double as platforms for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation.
Busy streets of Kingston Jamaica at downtown coronation market
Blog
Ruth C. White
Why mental health is core to disaster risk reduction
As DRR frameworks increasingly recognize the importance of mental health in preparedness and recovery, there are some policy actions that can be taken to strengthen the resilience of individuals and communities.
Shinjuku area in Tokyo, full of shopping malls, electrical appliance stores, fashion stores, second-hand goods, and restaurants. It is the largest night entertainment area in Japan
Blog
Patrick Cadwell
Japan’s changing DRR policy discourse and what it means for inclusion
The last two decades in Japan reveal a steady increase in the language of inclusion, and a more detailed consideration of how to engage foreign nationals in DRR. There is a lot of good to take away from this more inclusive DRR policy in Japan.
A group of people walk trought the heat along the Makeni highway in Sierra Leone
Blog
Pious Mannah
Translating risk into local languages: lessons from Sierra Leone
The blog highlights how overcoming language and literacy barriers through translation, audio tools and gamified learning has strengthened inclusive disaster risk communication and community resilience in Sierra Leone.
Woman with white umbrella waiting signal for cross walk during rain in the evening.
Blog
Ilan Kelman
Can risk be managed without measuring it?
Many risks require measurement for management. Just not all of them.
Children in Colombia colouring in COPE Disaster Champion books
Blog
Martha Keswick Lina Suárez
Empowering children with free DRR materials: COPE Disaster Champions, 10 years in the making
In each of the COPE books, the squad heads off on missions to disaster-prone areas to teach other kids how to be ready for disasters, how to become agents of change in their communities and deliver a clear key DRR message.
A man is shooting videos at the waterfront of Heng Fa Chuen on the east of Hong Kong Island when rough waves hit the promenade during Severe Typhoon Mangkhut's strike in 2018.
Blog
Ilan Kelman
Is nature angry with us?
To avoid disasters, our actions ought to be about cooperating and living with nature – and with each other – without harm, including without harming ourselves. We should recognise and implement the worldviews that humanity and nature are intertwined.
AI Learning and Artificial Intelligence Concept.
Blog
Dr. Sanjay K. Srivastava
Using artificial intelligence to fast-track achieving the Sendai targets
In a warming world where extremes are becoming the norm, AI, and what comes after it, offers us that possibility-if we choose to deploy it not just for efficiency, but for foresight, fairness, and resilience.