Resilience in the face of disaster: Evaluation of a community development and engagement initiative in Queensland, Australia

Unprecedented hydro-meteorological events experienced during the 2010-11 'Summer of Disasters' led to all 73 Queensland local governments in Australia being disaster-affected. To help communities recover from these events and build resilience for the future, a Community Development and Recovery Package was activated by the Australian and Queensland governments. Queensland's inaugural activation created a unique opportunity to explore the perceptions of participants about whether the program was effective in enhancing community resilience.

The findings indicate that disaster recovery should be viewed within a broader framework of resilience. It identified the types of community development programs that can help people adapt, move forward and come together to develop skills and knowledge post disaster to enhance community capacity and resilience. Despite the program's overall success, significant challenges were experienced. This paper advocates for a greater focus on disaster prevention and preparedness, as opposed to response and recovery, and makes several recommendations to ensure future opportunities to foster long-term community resilience to natural hazards in Queensland are maximised.

Autralian Journal of Emergency Management, Volume 30, Number 3, July 2015, Pages 25-30. This article is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.