Responding to Urban Disasters: Learning from previous relief and recovery operations

This paper was written for those involved in planning and implementing relief and early recovery operations in urban areas. Focusing mainly on earthquakes and flooding, it attempts to capture what is currently known about disaster response in urban contexts taking into account recent urban disasters such Typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines (2009), the Haiti earthquake of 2010 and the Northeast Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011.

This paper outlines key lessons related to the design and implementation of urban disaster-response programmes. It focuses particularly on the response and early recovery phases of an urban emergency. It is targeted at people working for international agencies. However, the majority of lessons in the paper should also be applicable to programmes implemented by local and national civil society organisations and by municipal and national government agencies.