Making Hong Kong a Resilient City Report and “COPE” a Children DRR Story Book Series

This event first presents a recent report on “Making Hong Kong a Resilient City”. Hong Kong is ranked as the city in Asia with the highest risk for natural disasters. This presentation examines Hong Kong’s disaster resilience using the Sendai Framework Local Urban Indicators Tools. The study found that Hong Kong is generally disaster resilient in that it mainstreams disaster risk in its development and that it dedicates sufficient financial resources. However, Hong Kong may improve on its disaster governance and encourage cooperation between the government and society to identify disaster risk and share information, particularly in the face of climate change and calls for more sustainable development. An action plan is proposed as a response to the above preliminary assessment, which comprises four domains. Each domain has specific programmes to fill in the gaps identified to reduce disaster risks and to strengthen Hong Kong’s disaster resilience capacity in the long term.

Another highlight of this event is the presentation of a children story book series entitled “COPE”. This is a series of fun, innovative and beautifully illustrated children’s books intended for global distribution to increase the disaster resilience of children. Children are among the most vulnerable groups affected by natural disasters and it is therefore of utmost importance that they are properly empowered to be prepared. According to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), which was adopted at the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015, children have a vital role to play in reducing risk, strengthening community resilience and shaping legislation to better protect against disasters. COPE’s touching and humorous illustrations will capture children’s imagination to teach them simple steps for disaster preparedness, which may one day save their lives.

The above report and a sample children story book on “earthquakes” will be made available on a first-come-first-served basis