Urban Disaster Resilience: New Dimensions from International Practice in the Built Environment

The year 2016 may well prove to be a turning point in how humanitarian aid responds to urban crises. For one, the need is great: forced migration is at its highest since World War II; the number and scale of naturally-triggered disasters are increasing; 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded. Also, the current aid system, largely unchanged in 75 years, is failing to cope. In response to these challenges, ‘resilience’ has gained momentum as a politically-galvanising approach for enacting multidisciplinary measures from neighborhood to city level that reduce the threat of damaging events, and, should one occur, to enable societies to recover quicker and more effectively. This networking event proposes to explore the application of urban resilience through the launch of two important publications. The first is the IFRC 2016 World Disasters Report, which this year is focusing on resilience. The report comprises inputs from some 49 contributors from across the world and explores issues including investing in resilience, mental health, partnerships and anticipation. The second publication is the 2016 book, Urban disaster resilience: new dimensions from practice in the built environment, which results from the conference ‘Design for urban disaster’ held at Harvard University in 2014, and includes case studies from Chile, Haiti, Iraq, Thailand and the Philippines. This event will bring together contributors (practitioners and academics) to both publications to discuss, debate and examine what resilience means now and for the future. Questions will be taken from the audience. The first panel will comprise contributors to the IFRC 2016 World Disasters Report. The second panel will comprise contributors to the Urban Disaster Resilience. Critical issues include: what does successful resilience look like? What are the key obstacles to enacting lasting resilience, and how can these be overcome and by whom?