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Although, a number of initiatives have been taken after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami to institutionalise disaster risk reduction (DRR), gaps still exist in the Sri Lankan local government sector. Even after ten years, local governments are still struggling to overcome a number of challenges in relation to making resilience in the built environment. DRR has not yet been properly integrated into the local government system and, as a result, poses a significant challenge. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to discover the hindrances for local governments in creating disaster resilient built environment within cities and to propose ways of overcoming the identified limitations.

In total, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted among experts from Sri Lanka who are involved in disaster management, local governments and built environment fields of study. The interviews were conducted with the intention of gaining expert knowledge pertaining to this field of study. The interviews were mainly designed to capture the current practices for instigating DRR initiatives within Sri Lanka, the role of local governments in creating a disaster resilient built environment and the associated challenges, and ways of overcoming such challenges to ensure an effective contribution to city resilience.

Primary data discovered 36 challenges along with some associated sub-challenges. The challenges were categorised under eight main themes: legal framework; lack of adequate tools, techniques and guidelines; human resource constraints; funding constraints; weaknesses in the internal systems and processes; weaknesses in the external systems; community engagement; and other challenges. The paper analyses these challenges in detail and proposes a set of recommendations to overcome the challenges in order to create disaster resilient built environments within cities.

The paper provides a descriptive analysis of how the Sri Lankan local government sector could overcome the underpinning challenges of contributing to disaster resilience in the built environment and no comparative studies were conducted with in other tsunami affected regions. Furthermore, the paper analyses partial findings of a broader research, which was aimed at developing a framework to empower local governments in creating a disaster resilient built environment.

The paper provides an extensive analysis of the challenges faced by local governments in contributing to the resilience of their built environment and proposes how these challenges could be overcome while making a worthwhile contribution to both theory and practice. Accordingly, the paper recommends major changes in policy and practice with respect to bringing local governments into DRR.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a guideline to mainstream women into disaster reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka.

The paper is based on ten in-depth interviews conducted with professionals engaged in disaster risk reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. The interviews are complemented by a comprehensive literature review conducted on the impacts of 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on women in Sri Lanka, and the country’s status of mainstreaming women into disaster reduction in the built environment.

The paper presents a guideline for mainstreaming women into disaster reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka which consists of factors influencing the process, main steps, parties responsible, required resources, required expertise, appropriate stages of development to conduct the process, barriers to the process and how to improve the process.

At present, there are no guidelines which specifically inform how to mainstream women into disaster reduction in the built environment in Sri Lanka. Such guideline is significant to reduce women’s vulnerability to natural disasters and also to tackle disaster vulnerabilities of the built environment in general.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the conceptual understanding of the process of participation in early warning systems (EWS) through a review of participatory EWS examples in the academic literature. Specifically, this paper asks: who is involved, what responsibilities do participants hold, what activities are they involved in, and what are the associated successes, issues and outcomes?

A total of 30 cases of participation in EWS documented in the academic literature were identified through online searches. Existing concepts in participation (power and responsibility, communication) and people-centred early warning (risk knowledge, monitoring and warning, communication and dissemination and response capability) were used to examine each paper.

Participation was found to take place through a range of activities across all elements of the EWS. Participation also varied in breadth of inclusion, ranging from the general public to selected volunteers. The majority of cases received support and facilitation from other actors, such as government and NGOs, but the extent of power and responsibility held by participants varied greatly within this. Common successes and issues associated with participatory EWS and the potential outcomes are presented, and the opportunities, challenges and gaps in knowledge are discussed.

This paper links participation and EWS literature to form a clearer conceptualisation of participation in EWS in support of future research in the field. It provides unique insights into who participates, their roles and relations with other actors and the outcomes of participation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an update of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) campaign on Making Cities Resilient.

An opinion piece written by the Director a.i. of UNISDR and the Editors of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment.

The campaign will continue and the focus will shift to more implementation support, city‐to‐city learning and cooperation, local action planning and monitoring of progress in cities.

Continued advocacy will seek to commit more cities and increase the support by national governments to support city resilience and local capacities.