A Toolkit for Local Governments

Throughout history, disaster events have disrupted urban life. With more than half of the world’s population now living in urban areas, making our cities safer is a long-term challenge. The good news is that we can meet this challenge!

This website provides mayors, governors, and other local government leaders with a generic framework for disaster risk reduction. It points to good practices and tools that are already being applied for that purpose and offers practical guidance to understand and take action on the "Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient," as set out in the global campaign "Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready!" Browse through the website to learn:

• WHY disaster risk reduction should be among the top priorities of local government authorities
• WHAT are the strategies and actions, or 'essential' areas should you focus on
• HOW you can translate this information into action plans, thereby making your community, municipality or city more resilient to disasters.

This site is built on a foundation of knowledge and expertise of Campaign partners, participating cities and local governments, who have called for better access to information, knowledge, capacities and tools to effectively deal with disaster risk and extreme climate events. Each city and local government will determine how these actions can be applied in their own context and with existing capacities. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

The annexes to the Handbook for Local Government Leaders contain more detailed information, including links to electronic tools, resources and examples from partner cities. Please think about sharing your experience and expertise to enrich this site.
Send your stories, tools and good practices to: isdr-camaign@un.org