Rio: Building community resilience for resilient cities - driving the local Implementation of the HFA

This event, held as part of the World Urban Forum in Rio, examined how local governments are partnering with communities to promote the building of resilient cities

Sponsored by, The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway, UN-HABITAT, EMI and Huairou Commission, this event featured five local authorities from Bolivia, Ecuador, Philippines, and Brazil and two grassroots women leaders from Jamaica and Peru, members of GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission.

Arvinn E Gadgill, Political Adviser and Junior Minister from Norway framed the event by giving an excellent analysis on the state of political and institutional arrangements, stating that "they do not currently exist to address local community priorities or women's issues and capacities." He spoke of the need to develop new policies and tools to adapt to new contexts and inter institutional coordination that links to the communities. He closed by saying that grassroots women's groups are an untapped resource in this process and can drive the demand for disaster risk reduction.

Local authorities spoke about the risks that their communities were facing and how they institutionalized DRR into local decision making through - community participation and participatory processes (i.e. Quito and Manila), managerial (Rio de Janeiro) and technological approaches to monitor upcoming events (i.e. Bolivia). Margareta Wahlstrom, Assistant Secretary General for Disaster Reduction, noted that it is important to acknowledge the sometimes uneven balance between 'governments know best' approach and the respect of community knowledge.

With that, Carmen Griffiths, Director of CRDC in Kingston Jamaica spoke about local authority cooperation with grassroots women's groups on issues of housing reconstruction that incorporates hazard reduction, women's safety and environmental initiatives that promote safer cities. Carmen said, "we have trained women in 20 communities to look at their housing vulnerability to disaster, and how they can incorporate small mitigation techniques such as roof retrofitting, hurricane straps etc. As a result, these techniques have been incorporated into building codes at the municipal level."

Castorina Villegas from GROOTS Peru and Mujeres Unidas gave a comprehensive overview of how communities can organize to reduce vulnerabilities to disaster through hazard mapping and advocacy awareness of DRR policy frameworks (such as the Hyogo Framework of Action). She helped to implement this initiative in 9 communities in Peru with the support of municipal governments to redress vulnerabilities found from the process. As a result, the local governments have committed to building retention walls, and reinstalling water and sanitation systems that were found to be hazard prone. Illustrating the scale of their work Castorina explained, "now the national disaster agencies are commending our work and have asked us to train them!"

In short, this session called for more innovative political frameworks that create opportunities for real participation from networks of grassroots women who are capable of sustainable action to reduce vulnerabilities and build a culture of resilience in their communities.