Recovery

For this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDP describes how risk-informed housing and land-use planning is taking shape in Cuba, Jamaica and Venezuela, in a region where 81.2 per cent of the population lives in cities.

After Cyclone Gezani devastated Madagascar, pre-arranged financing programme, REPAIR, helped mobilize over US$15 million within seven days, supporting emergency assistance, cash-for-work activities and community-led recovery for more than 400,000 people.

Within seven days of the government's request, the REPAIR programme mobilized more than US$15 million for Madagascar's recovery from Cyclone Gezani, funding cash-for-work for 40,000 households and assistance for more than 400,000 people.

Along Colombia’s San Juan River, Afro Colombian community councils documented earthquake losses house by house – but only municipal authorities can enter those households into the national register that unlocks state assistance.

Team at Utrecht University developed a method to classify groundwater systems based on their ability to recover from long drought to better determine how groundwater systems recover after a drought and which groundwater reserves are most vulnerable.

In late 2025, typhoons damaged thousands of schools in Viet Nam, disrupting learning for millions. UNESCO and the Ministry of Education and Training helped communities in Cao Bang and Lang Son restore schools and prepare for future emergencies.

This paper examines how temporary community facilities can instead operate as longer-term recovery assets by analyzing the Kumamoto Home-for-All Reutilization Project in Japan.

After devastating floods at the Nepal-Tibet border, researchers urge recovery plans that prioritize livelihoods, local governance and Indigenous communities, while reducing future risk through equitable reconstruction, relocation and development planning.

Peek says getting involved in age-appropriate ways can help kids process the disaster they experienced or witnessed, and it shows them the power they have to make a difference.

Zoning restrictions can prevent new manufactured home parks from opening in safer locations, forcing disaster survivors to return to flood-prone areas.

This study assesses preparedness, response and recovery following Cyclone Ana in Zimbabwe. It finds gaps in preparedness, warning communication and coordination, and calls for community-centred DRM, stronger capacity, financing and contingency planning.

Along the Nepal-Tibet border, the long road to recovery has only just begun. Amidst profound grief and loss, local communities are already providing support to their most vulnerable. Governments and international organisations should follow their lead.

Major floods in Nepal and Sri Lanka show how disasters that strike before recovery is complete can deepen losses, weaken resilience and increase vulnerability. Experts argue that recovery progress should be measured alongside disaster risk.

This report provides guidance for homeowners, regulators and recovery professionals on assessing soil contamination, testing requirements and safe restoration after fires.

Using a case study involving residents, First Nations communities and local organisations, this paper explores how community-led co-design was enacted in local recovery across four wildfire-affected regions in Australia.

This study examines how residents’ perceptions of disaster heritage influence attitudes toward its preservation.

While there are many safety concerns after a wildfire, three deserve particular attention: chemicals in surviving buildings, the safety of drinking water and whether burned lots are ready for rebuilding.

Latest findings from the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study found that recovery from the August 2023 blaze “is underway, but it remains uneven,” as adults and children who survived the fire show signs of the physical and mental health toll.

This guidance presents people-centred circular approaches to rubble management and reconstruction after disasters and conflicts. It outlines practical measures to reuse and recycle rubble while supporting recovery, livelihoods and sustainable rebuilding.

This study examines post-disaster risk communication after the Grenfell Tower fire, arguing that acknowledging uncertainty, enabling inclusive risk assessment and applying precaution can help rebuild trust between authorities and affected communities.

This study examined recovery needs and actions after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Sint Maarten (2017), using a SIDS recovery framework to assess whether key sectors and recovery priorities were adequately addressed.

Many in Sandy Creek remain stuck in a recovery system that wasn’t designed for them.

Syria became one of the earliest countries to implement UNDRR's DELTA Resilience system, which will help it better understand and reduce the disaster risks it faces as it recovers from years of war.

This study conducts a comparative analysis of the presence and evolution of disaster and earthquake-focused courses in Turkish public and foundation universities between 2022 and 2025.

This paper presents an expert commentary on lessons learned across five dimensions: governance, community engagement, technical assessment tools, professional mobilization, and urban reconstruction.

This is a comprehensive assessment that will guide Sri Lanka's recovery and reconstruction efforts following one of the most devastating disasters in its recent history.

Nearly a quarter of the land in Ethiopia is degraded. It has lost its quality and can no longer grow crops, support plant life, or hold water as it used to.

Updating post-fire debris-flow hazard thresholds with satellite-tracked vegetation recovery reduces false alarms and improves predictions for years 2 and 3 after a wildfire.

As climate shocks escalate in frequency and severity across Eastern Africa, the chronic reliance on post-disaster emergency aid is proving too slow, too costly, and too inadequate to protect the region's most vulnerable communities.

Filipinos’ ideas about how to improve disaster response and recovery. Distributed to local communities, local government partners and high schools to support teaching on DRR.

This paper advances the concept of ‘Reformative Recovery’ and proposes an analytical framework as a sense-making tool to guide interpretation of recovery dynamics by foregrounding the conditions that foster vulnerability and impede long-term resilience

When disasters strike, they do more than damage homes and infrastructure—they test how quickly countries can mobilize finance, coordinate institutions, and turn “build back better” from aspiration into action.

Disaster response and recovery are most effective when community-led networks combine central coordination with reciprocal collaboration, highlighting the critical role of local social infrastructure in resilience.

Using data from a sample of educated youth in Myanmar, this paper documents the relationship between various sources of chronic (ongoing and long-term) and acute (brief and intense) stressors with measures of hope and aspirations.

Flooding caused by extreme and prolonged rainfall is occurring more frequently across Europe. The way countries recover afterwards varies widely. These differences offer valuable lessons.

Study covering five major economies finds smaller communities face the longest economic recoveries, with damage persisting for up to four months.

Because Fukushima is considered a national responsibility, it is legally stipulated that all contaminated soil must be removed from the prefecture by 2045.

TC Alfred was the first tropical cyclone to impact the Brisbane region in more than 50 years. It made landfall as a category 1 but peaked as a category 4 off the coast and ranked among 2025’s costliest global disasters.

A review published in Civil Engineering Sciences examines how machine learning (ML) methods are being applied to support infrastructure recovery following natural hazards.