Vulnerability Assessment

After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, residents of North Rokko used the participatory Machizukuri model to create alternative reconstruction plans, forming neighbourhood associations that strengthened community resilience and civic engagement.

Structured collaboration among stakeholders to enhance community resilience

A five-step method for building flood early warning systems with local communities, municipalities and national weather and civil defence services in the Andes.

It was developed by CIIFEN, the International Research Centre on El Niño, under the regional programme PRASDES, which Finland’s foreign ministry financed. It joins the four components of early warning set out by the UN disaster-reduction office to an approach of the Organization of American States in which trained community volunteers operate simple rain and river-level instruments. 

In 2015-2016, residents of 19 communities in Escoma, Bolivia, mapped flood-prone areas with the municipality to build a local flood early warning system.

A community flood early warning system was built in Querecotillo, Peru, in 2016, with residents mapping flood zones and rehearsing an evacuation drill. CIIFEN worked with the municipality, the civil defence institute INDECI and the weather service SENAMHI between January and September 2016.

The Zambia Red Cross acted on a flood forecast in January 2023 to warn and equip households in Kitwe and Kafue before the water arrived.

The initiative combines participatory resilience assessment, university technical support and community engagement. A December 2023 Scorecard workshop identified data-management needs, leading the municipality and university to establish a dedicated data-collection portal.

Suryodaya connects neighbourhood organisation with municipal disaster risk governance. Its 201 Tole Development Committees support preparedness and community mobilisation, working with ward and municipal authorities. Participatory assessment and planning connect local knowledge with technical risk analysis and municipal action.

Municipal initiative integrating persons with disabilities into DRR and infrastructure planning through disaggregated data collection, workshops with caregivers and disability organisations, and a permanent communication forum linking communities and municipal departments.

A free, curriculum-linked first aid teaching toolkit that enables any secondary school teacher across the UK to deliver first aid education to students.