INTRODUCTION
Why community-led partnerships matter
Recurring large-scale disasters coupled with smaller localized events and changing weather patterns call for strategies that effectively address local impacts of natural hazards and climate change. In recent years, policymakers and civil society organizations have noted that national legislation, policies and programs in place to advance disaster and climate resilience have not yielded results at local levels,1 particularly for communities that already suffer from structural inequalities and marginalization. Experience has shown that governments need the collaboration of local communities who live and work in hazard prone areas to ensure that proposed solutions strengthen the resilience of rural and urban poor communities that are most adversely affected by natural hazards and a changing climate.
Yet many policymakers are unaware that community-driven initiatives are already underway addressing the needs of impoverished, marginalized communities in the face of disaster and climate change. These initiatives have built multi-stakeholder partnerships with local and national governments, universities, researchers and the private sector. When successful, the results invariably benefit all concerned. National and local governments are able to design and deliver effective programs that fulfill their commitments to marginalized populations, as community partnerships help ground government policies and practice in local realities. At the same time, communities driving local action benefit by gaining access to public resources, technical training, and decision-making processes to scale up and sustain their initiatives, equipping them to better withstand the potentially devastating effects of disasters. In addition, partnerships are transforming relationships between communities and other stakeholders, recognizing communities as active agents, citizens, constituents, and stakeholders who have knowledge, experience, and capacities to contribute to problem-solving. Most importantly these partnerships are precedent-setting, demonstrating that reducing the impacts of disasters and climate change requires new kinds of collaborative strategies in which communities must play a central role.
