ECB Launches "Toward Resilience: A Guide to Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation"

There has been an ever increasing need to increase resilience and providing appropriate coping mechanisms to vulnerable communities, and in order to do so there were also many other tools created in order to measure vulnerability. These tools (such as the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach) looks at and analysis individual and institutional capacities to assist in developing coping mechanisms that would reduce vulnerability.

There are many forms of vulnerability that can be experienced: Political Vulnerability, Economic Vulnerability and Social Vulnerability. However, there is the generally accepted Environmental Vulnerability which looks at the impacts of natural occurrences (or induced by anthropogenic activities) that impacts on the daily lives of communities. These natural impacts include floods, mud slides, climate change effects - such as droughts.

Therefore, understanding and yet developing tools and frameworks that assists in responding to disasters and those left vulnerable to due climate change impacts contribute to the knowledge pool of disaster risk reduction (DRR). Therefore, I would like to highlight the Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) Project and the release of their resource for stakeholders and community/humanitarian organisations entitled: "Toward Resilience: A Guide to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA)".

Source: Emergency Capacity Building Project

The guide looks at six main factors that include understanding DRR and CCA, the vulnerable groups that may be affected (women, children and high risk groups), and also importantly looks at the programme cycle management for DRR and CCA which incorporates the implementation of projects and other areas of interest.