Building the resilience of SMEs in Italy

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) “Building SMEs Resilience” survey was conducted in Italy with an aim to build a baseline understanding of where small and medium businesses are in terms of understanding and managing risks, investing in resilience, and preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters caused by natural hazards, extreme weather events and cascading impacts. This is a first step to then provide recommendations to make investments, businesses and societies more risk-sensitive.

This survey has shown that strengthening the resilience of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) requires:

• Strengthened engagement of the banking sector and local governments;
• Strengthening the utility sector and to interdependencies;
• Building capacity and providing applicable guidance;
• Building a new genre of Business Continuity Plans.