‘Making cities sustainable and resilient: Implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 at the local level’, is a three-year initiative (2016-2019) supported by the European Commission to improve understanding and capacity to address disaster risks and build resilience at local levels, with a focus on crisis-prone cities. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and implementing partners have worked with over 200 cities and local governments to assess gaps and progress in addressing local resilience; and with 20 pilot cities in developing and implementing climate and disaster resilience plans.

This report seeks to capture the cities’ experiences and lessons learned by reviewing the opportunities and challenges faced by those who took part and their recommendations for improving the process. It shows how, through the completion of scorecard assessments and DRR action plans, cities raised awareness and understanding of issues and their connectedness. The process built local capacity, generated awareness and interest, and created or strengthened stakeholder partnerships.

Ensuring sustainable progress in resilience building is also a challenge, which depends upon a range of influences. Therefore, the report draws on the experiences of ‘Role Model’ cities that demonstrate commitment, achievements and good practice in DRR and resilience building to identify key themes and success factors. Several of the success factors identified are closely aligned to UNDRR’s ‘Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient’, suggesting that certain core priorities promote sustainability of resilience building.