Safe Cities: Online course

This program belongs to the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery's (GFDRR) Global Distance Learning Program on Natural Disaster Risk Management (GFDRR-NDRMP), a series of online courses designed to build competency in DRM practice globally. The NDRMP aims to raise the awareness of key stakeholders and enhance the analytical skills and professional knowledge of development practitioners in specific areas of DRM. Many of the courses administered by EMI have been localized with examples and case studies from the Philippines and other parts of the world.

Description

Safe Cities is a specialization course that provides an overview of sound disaster risk management practice for local government policymakers, urban managers, planners, and disaster management professionals. It discusses the inter-linkages of the social and physical parameters of vulnerability in cities and municipalities with their local government development, organization, and management. It explains the impediments to disaster risk reduction in urban environments and then presents the key concepts of disaster risk management and the role and intervention of local institutions. It emphasizes that disaster risk reduction only takes place when it is inherently integrated within local government functions.

Since 2006, the program has graduated more than 500 participants across 40 countries.

Course objectives

This specialization course addresses the particular concerns of urban managers and planners. It reviews processes, regulations - land use, infrastructure, construction, building codes - enforcement issues and methods essential to reducing exposure to hazards and limiting the physical vulnerability of high density settlements.