6 - 13 April 2021 - Centre International de Formation des Autorités et Leaders Jeju (CIFAL Jeju) organized an Online Capacity Development Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies and Digital Government For Local Resilience in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Office for Northeast Asia and Global Education and Training Institute (ONEA & GETI), and the United Nations Project Office on Governance (UNPOG) of the Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DPIDG/UN DESA). The workshop received around 2,000 applications and invited around 300 participants from mainly local government but also NGOs and academia in the Asia and Pacific.

This online workshop comprised of three sessions. The first session, sub-titled “Localizing Global Frameworks in Coherence,” touched upon general overview of the concept of disaster risk reduction while providing three different frameworks for interpretation of local, ecosystem-based, and digital government. Mr. Sanjaya Bhatia, Head of Office of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR ONEA & GETI), Dr. Muralee Thummarukudy, Operations Manager of the UN Environment Programme in Geneva, and Mr. Danaa Samuel, Associate Capacity Development Expert of the UN Project Office on Governance, DPIDG/UN DESA contributed to the session.

Based on the experts’ lectures of the Session 1, participants were given opportunities to get familiar with the policy tools to conceptualize and address local disaster risks in the second session. Under the sub-title, Urban Resilience Tools and Digital Government Solution for DRR, this session invited participants to work as a group and offered UNDRR’s Scorecard Assessment Tool and UNPOG’s Digital Government Solution Toolkit to explore, following the guidance provided by Ms. Ana Thorlund, Programme Management Officer of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR ONEA & GETI), Mr. Keping Yao, Senior Governance and Public Administration Expert of the UN Project Office on Governance, DPIDG/UN DESA contributed to the session, and Mr. Danaa Samuel, Associate Capacity Development Expert of the same organization.

The third and last session of this online capacity development workshop, a highlight of the workshop, was held with a focus on “Towards Developing Local DRR Strategies”. The Session 3 started with an introduction of practical information about MCR 2030. Then Mr. Alexander A. Mejia, Director of the Division for People and Social Inclusion & Head of CIFAL Global Network revisited the issue of disaster risk reduction and emphasized the importance of training and capacity building, as UNITAR is mandated and committed to.

Session-based group work helped participants to transform in-depth learning into practice and familiarize with coordinated action for decision making. It also contributed to ensuring cities become inclusive, safe, resilient and to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) and other global frameworks

After this workshop, participants are expected to be able to localize and implement the international frameworks into their cities or national context to pursue greater resilience and sustainable development.