International Disaster and Risk Conference 2016: key resources

For the 2016 International Disaster and Risk Conference in Davos, Switzerland, IIED collected a range of resources detailing its work with partners on disaster and risk issues.

Article, 28 August 2016
Indigeonous communities join government officials, NGOs and academics to participate in a ridge-to-reef mapping workshop in Cagayan de Oro City to identify threats to the forest and environment ecosystem (Photo: Horacio Marcos C. Mordeno, MindaNews, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Indigeonous communities join government officials, NGOs and academics to participate in a ridge-to-reef mapping workshop in Cagayan de Oro City to identify threats to the forest and environment ecosystem (Photo: Horacio Marcos C. Mordeno, MindaNews, Creative Commons via Flickr)

The biennial International Disaster and Risk Conference in Davos, Switzerland, from 28 August to 1 September focused on a wide range of issues relating to risk reduction and disaster management across the globe.

The theme was 'Integrative risk management – towards resilient cities', with a focus on urban areas and promoting resilience in cities.

IIED's disaster and risk work focuses on local community engagement with climate change impacts, risks, and adaptation, particularly in urban areas. And while IIED's researchers didn't attend the conference, we collected a number of related blogs and publications to read and download. 

In May 2016, IIED senior researcher Diane Archer attended the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, and her follow-up blog discussed lessons learned from the humanitarian response to the 2015 earthquake in Nepal.

She describes how in Kirtipur, local people responded more efficiently and made better use of humanitarian aid than other areas, because the community had already been working with the municipality to set up disaster management strategies, and to train up local volunteers in disaster response. She shows how local stakeholders had the knowledge and capacity to work quickly, and how international humanitarian response must take local needs into account. 

When local actors have the opportunity to be understood and supported by external actors, then evolution in urban humanitarian response through capacity building and learning is possible - Diane Archer

IIED led the three-year Urban Crises Learning Fund, and the programme of research, documentation of past experiences, development of tools and guidelines, and shared learning across humanitarian actors and other urban stakeholders, ensures that future disasters achieve the level of local engagement and collaboration that benefited Kirtipur. 

Further reading across IIED's work on disasters and risk includes: 

News: New film tracks city's recovery from deadly typhoon 
News: New research funded on protecting the vulnerable in urban humanitarian crises 
Blog: Collaborations in urban humanitarian response – introducing the Global Alliance for Urban Crises, by Diane Archer
Blog: Fieldnotes from two cities in India: learning about social learning and climate uncertainty, by Susannah Fisher and David Dodman
Blog: Cyclone Roanu hits Bangladesh: a story of loss and damage avoided, by Saleemul Huq
Blog: Comparing approaches to riverbank vulnerability in Indonesia, by John Taylor

Publications

The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), a partner of IIED, is building the capacity of stakeholders in cities in India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines to explore how urban areas become climate resilient. The publications below, by ACCCRN, IIED and other partners, focus on areas of disaster and risk reduction.