Disaster Resilience and Recovery
The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
In most disasters, neighbours, local organizations and local governments act first, long before outside help arrives. Their knowledge, networks and resources decide how many people are warned, rescued, sheltered and supported in the first hours and days. This page sets out how local preparedness works, how it can be supported without displacing local leadership, and what evidence serves local governments and community organizations.
GCRI · In development · service level R0
Community disaster preparedness is the knowledge, networks and resources of households, neighbourhoods and local organizations that let them act first when disaster strikes. Neighbours carry out most early rescue, and social ties carry help. Local governments hold the mandate to act but often lack the funds and staff.
For community and local preparedness, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on population density, true-colour imagery and flood water, framed on the Philippines; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For community and local preparedness, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on population density, true-colour imagery and flood water, framed on the Philippines; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Community and local preparedness · Province C · Monsoon season
| Cash to at-risk households | 72 h | 45 | Yes |
| Livestock evacuation | 48 h | 10 | Partial |
| Shelter kits | 72 h | 22 | Yes |
Local governance and inclusion. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Search and rescue in the first hours is mostly carried out by people nearby. Their training, tools and knowledge of who needs help shape survival.
Networks of family, faith groups, associations and neighbours share information, shelter and resources. People who are isolated, new or excluded are reached last.
Communities often recognise signs of floods, landslides or drought from experience and tradition. That knowledge complements formal warnings when both are respected.
Local governments and organizations hold the mandate to act but often lack funds, staff and authority. Flexible local funding and clear roles make their action faster.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Community-based disaster risk management | An approach in which communities identify their risks and lead the action to reduce them. |
| Localisation | Shifting humanitarian leadership, decision-making and funding toward local and national actors. |
| Local knowledge | Understanding of hazards and coping developed by communities through experience and tradition. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communities with local disaster risk plans | percent of communities | annual | Local government records | REPORTED |
| Trained community volunteers | count per thousand population | annual | Volunteer registers | REPORTED |
| Households with a preparedness plan | percent of households | per survey | Household surveys | REPORTED |
| Local organizations in coordination mechanisms | count | annual | Coordination records | REPORTED |
| Humanitarian funding to local actors | share of funding provided directly to local and national actors | annual | Financial tracking | REPORTED |
| People with disabilities included in local plans | percent of plans with specific measures | per review | Plan reviews | ESTIMATED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| UNDRR Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities | City self-assessment against the ten essentials | Public, UN terms of use |
| IFRC Road Map to Community Resilience and community resilience measurement dashboard | Approach and tools for community resilience | Public, IFRC terms (to check) |
| OCHA Financial Tracking Service | Humanitarian funding flows by recipient type | Public, UN terms of use |
| Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction Views from the Frontline | Community perspectives on local risk and resilience | Public, terms to check |
| National household and preparedness surveys | Household preparedness and risk perception | Licence per survey |
Disaster Resilience and Recovery prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Local governments | How to plan, fund and coordinate local preparedness | Scorecard results; local plan reviews |
| Community and civil society organizations | Where to focus training and outreach | Household survey evidence; inclusion reviews |
| Donors and international agencies | How to channel funding and authority to local actors | Funding flow analyses |
Researchers on local preparedness ask who acts first and with what.
Social ties are one of the strongest predictors of how people fare in disasters. People with networks receive warnings sooner, evacuate with help, find shelter and access recovery support. Isolated people, including many older and disabled people, face greater risk. Local organizations, from faith groups to traders' associations, often provide the first response and act as trusted channels when formal ones fail.
Local government is frequently assigned responsibility without matching resources. Where national systems treat communities as passive recipients, they can overlook local knowledge and weaken the capacities they depend on. Inclusion is a safety issue as well as a rights issue: plans that ignore the needs of particular groups fail those groups, and those failures often reveal gaps that affect everyone.
Communities mapping their own risks and capacities. Results depend on who participates.
Measuring ties and their role in response, with social and behavioural science. Networks are hard to measure consistently.
Reviewing resources and mandates of local government. Formal mandates may not reflect actual capacity.
Checking plans against the needs of specific groups. Data disaggregated by disability or age is often missing.
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.