The role of local leaders in building inclusive resilience
The RCC recognizes the important role local leaders play in bridging the gap between communities and sub-national/national officials. Their understanding of local cultures, norms and contexts provide key insight to the current systems which supports in ensuring interventions are tailored to and aligned with the local needs. To strengthen the voices of local leaders at the regional level, a Local Leadership Forum was hosted (prior to the 14thRCC meeting).
The forum provided an opportunity for leaders to present and discuss their experiences and examples of how leadership has enhanced their community’s resilience through empowering women in disaster risk reduction (DRR); strengthened the role of community leaders in building resilience in conflict; enhanced youth leadership; and ensured accountability and transparency to support effective local disaster risk management (DRM).
The forum also provided an opportunity to launch a Cookbook with key ingredients on designing, planning and implementing community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) activities that are institutionalized and sustainable. These key ingredients are the results of an evaluation of case studies as well as various workshops that provided local leaders with an opportunity to share their experiences and identify common success factors in CBDRM. The final Cookbook draws out critical ingredients as well as practical examples of how these ingredients can be put into practice.
The Cookbook was launched as part of a GNDR and USAID-OFDA supported program, implemented in partnership with 9 organizations at regional and national levels. ADPC, as a regional partner to the program and Secretariat to the RCC, will continue to leverage the RCC as a platform as a critical entry point to bring forward local voices to the regional level.