Civil Society And Local Actors

A community training programme that turns residents into organised, trained volunteers who can support emergency response and recovery in their neighbourhoods.

The Tokyo Resilience Project is a city-wide preparedness programme that equips residents with practical tools and learning experiences to improve everyday disaster readiness.

In practice, the project operates as a multi-hazard resilience “umbrella”: it strengthens physical protection (e.g., regulating reservoirs and river measures; coastal protection and sea-level-rise readiness; upgrading buildings and lifelines) while also trying to make preparedness “everyday” through accessible products and outreach. Examples of public-facing outputs include:

A national preparedness campaign that gives the public clear, practical steps to prepare for disasters and emergencies.

Ready.gov offers all-hazards and hazard-specific guidance - plans, supply kits, alerts and warnings, and recovery actions, with dedicated sections for Ready Kids and Ready Business that tailor preparedness actions to schools/families and the private sector.

This guide provides practical strategies for engaging children as active participants in disaster risk reduction. It frames children not merely as vulnerable groups but as agents capable of contributing ideas, identifying risks, and supporting community preparedness. Through participatory methods, case studies, and hands-on activities, the guide demonstrates how children can be meaningfully involved in planning, prevention, and resilience-building at the community level.

EDURES provides a comprehensive conceptual and operational toolkit for assessing, planning and strengthening the resilience of educational ecosystems, enabling education authorities and stakeholders to prepare for, respond to and adapt to crises while ensuring continuity, accessibility and democratic values in education.

COPE Disaster Champions provides free illustrated children’s books, educational jingles and a digital platform to teach disaster preparedness and risk awareness. Through storytelling, visuals and simple action-oriented messages, the initiative empowers children to understand risks and adopt safe behaviours before, during and after disasters.

A structured system where Japanese municipalities and welfare institutions create personalized evacuation strategies for vulnerable people, verified through inclusive drills and coordinated with local support networks.

RiskMap is an open, transparent, web-based platform that collects verified, real-time disaster reports from citizens via social media/chatbots and visualizes them on an interactive map.
Residents report hazards (e.g., flood location/depth, road closures, storm damage) and the map helps communities avoid danger and navigate to safety.
Emergency managers can use the same data stream (and, in some deployments, a dedicated dashboard) to support situational awareness and response planning.

The Palau CBDRR Toolkit strengthens “bottom-up” resilience by linking the national framework and state plans to the community/hamlet level. It covers preparedness topics such as early warning and operational procedures for disseminating alerts. It includes a participatory vulnerability assessment with attention to the needs of vulnerable groups. It promotes community engagement and an organized response through local committees (e.g., search and rescue and relief/assistance).

Local Resilience Agents (LRAs) are community members trained in disaster risk reduction, first aid, and search and rescue to supplement local government capacity and disseminate early warnings.