Disaster resilience
Disaster resilience is the capacity of people, institutions and systems to reduce risk before a shock, prepare for it, respond, and recover in a way that leaves them stronger. It rests on knowledge, practice and trained people as much as on infrastructure. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) supports risk reduction, readiness, recovery and competence with evidence, exercises and learning, while response remains with the authorities and emergency services. This page is part of global challenges.
- 01InstitutionThe Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
- 02Service levelR0: information and enquiries
- 03In briefThe short answer
- 04Four partsResilience runs before, during and after a shock
- 05How GCRI contributesEvidence, exercises and learning
- 06BoundariesSupport for preparedness is not emergency response
- 07Key termsTerms used on this page
GCRI · Institution · service level R0
The short answer.
Disaster resilience is the capacity of people, institutions and systems to reduce risk before a shock, prepare for it, respond and recover in a way that leaves them stronger. GCRI supports risk reduction, readiness, recovery and competence with evidence, exercises and learning, while response and official warnings stay with the authorized agencies.
Disaster exposure and reach in Mozambique and Malawi.
Where response must travel furthest from a large city, with the roads, airports and ports that carry relief, shown for Mozambique and Malawi as an example geography for this subject.
Resilience runs before, during and after a shock.
- 01
Risk reduction
Understanding hazard, exposure and vulnerability, and reducing them through planning, design and nature-based measures.
- 02
Readiness
Plans, warning systems, trained teams and exercises. GCRI's early warning capability work supports authorized agencies.
- 03
Recovery
Restoring services and livelihoods in an order that respects dependencies, and avoiding rebuilding the same risk.
- 04
Competence
People who know what to do, retained through learning and practice rather than lost between events.
Evidence, exercises and learning.
What the risk is
Multi-hazard and dependency studies, published with methods and uncertainty.
Testing plans safely
Controlled exercises with independent evaluators. Simulated warnings never reach live audiences.
Keeping competence
Supervised learning and after-action records, through academy and learning.
Support for preparedness is not emergency response.
Nexus is not an emergency service. It does not dispatch, command incidents or issue official warnings. Domain response teams within the National Working Groups support preparedness, observation, mapping, exercises and learning, and their interest, qualification, readiness and activation are distinct states.
In immediate danger, contact your local emergency services and follow the instructions of your authorities.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Resilience | The ability of a system or community exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, adapt to and recover from their effects in a timely way, in UNDRR usage. |
| Disaster risk reduction | Preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk and managing residual risk, contributing to resilience and sustainable development. |
| Sendai Framework | The United Nations framework, adopted by member states, that sets seven targets and four priorities for reducing disaster risk. |
| Build back better | Using recovery and reconstruction to increase resilience by integrating risk reduction into what is rebuilt. |
Platforms, fields and counterparts.
Field work is organized through the Disaster Resilience and Recovery platform, in development, and the disaster and crisis field gateway. The Global Risks Forum (GRF) examines disaster and crisis governance, and The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) examines disaster risk finance. See also climate and hazards.
Questions and answers.
Can GCRI send teams after a disaster?
What does an exercise involve?
How can a local authority take part?
Does resilience mean building everything stronger?
Who are the domain response teams?
Around GCRI.
Start with an enquiry.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.