Making Cities Resilient Report 2012

CHAPTER 4 | What are local governments doing to build resilience
Box 4.9 : From national to local commitment for resilient cities in Lebanon
The Disaster Risk Management Unit of the Presidency of Council of Ministers, coordinator for the National
Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (and supported by UNDP-Lebanon, and UNISDR), has embarked on a
comprehensive disaster risk reduction programme. As part of this effort, they have embraced the Making
Cities Resilient Campaign. Similar to countries such as Argentina, Iran, Philippines and Sweden, they are
proactively motivating and assisting their municipalities and cities to join the Campaign and improve
their capacity to deal with different disaster risks. This has been a gradual process in Lebanon. In a first
high-level Campaign launch event in 2010, six municipalities joined – Beirut, Byblos, Saida, Tripoli, Tyre,
and Baalbek. Several workshops were conducted with parliamentarians, private sector, government
departments and city representatives to raise the awareness and knowledge of what can be done,
including collaboration between Venice and Byblos, and several city representatives engaging in global
and regional forums around the campaign. In 2011, 51 municipalities had signed on to the Campaign, and
in 2012,the aim is to reach out to all.
To achieve this goal, the government conducted training of ‘trainers’ (officials of the Ministry of Interior,
municipalities, unions and other stakeholders) on how to use the Campaign tools (2012). Cities from other
countries came to share their experiences: from the Arab region (Amman, Aqaba, Petra) and other regions
of the world such as San Francisco, USA and Amadora, Portugal. This contributes to the city-to-city learning
and exchange good practices on urban risk reduction, including integrating and institutionalising disaster
risk reduction in urban development plans and investments.
“We are a newly elected council; we are concerned about disaster risk
reduction and so we registered as a Campaign City in October 2010. As a
first step, the Council looked at allocating a budget to begin risk reduction
activities: risk assessment, building a risk database, developing a DRR master
plan, etc. We analyzed our needs and took stock of what was available and
performed a gap analysis. We have several heritage sites within Beirut and
protecting and preserving their character is important. We will move ahead
using four pillars: technical support; financial support; involvement of the
private sector and civil society; and national government support. If we do not
allocate the right resources, we run the risk of not prioritising projects. Building
resilience is not the responsibility of the mayor alone. Action must be taken
at the following levels: national and provincial governments, city government
politicians—whether elected or appointed; and the municipal administration.”
Councilor Nada Yamout, Beirut, Lebanon.
Making Cities Resilient Report 2012 | 57