The University of Huddersfield’s Professor Dilanthi Amaratunga and De La Salle University’s Professor Andres Oreta, with the support of their CABARET colleagues Professor Richard Haigh and Dr Marlon Era hosted an International workshop on “Localising Strategies for Making Cities Resilient to Disasters.” The workshop, held from January 22 to 26, 2018 at the Henry Sy, Sr. Hall, was co-sponsored by DLSU, the University of Huddersfield, the British Council and the Newton Fund. It aimed to gather academe and local stakeholders to identify strategies that can be used to assess and build a city’s resilience to disasters, using the “Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient.” These essentials serve as a guide to good disaster risk reduction (DRR) practices and focus on the ability of a city to plan for, mitigate, respond, recover, adapt and grow after major disasters in the light of its unique physical, economic, environmental and social circumstances.
Communities in the Philippines need support by way of mainstreaming the “Ten Essentials” within their practices, and to build up relevant capacity. The workshop sought to assist academe in building networks that include local government units to promote dialogue and cooperation in enhancing the resilience in cities.. A key output of the workshop is a research roadmap that sets out the key scientific challenges and potential research programmes that can help support implementation of the ten essentials. The workshop has also helped to further strengthen the collaboration between the University of Huddersfield and DLSU, and result in further collaboration and the creation of a strategic partnership for research between the HEIs represented by the UK-Philippines researchers and beyond.