United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Fellowship
Making Cities Resilient: Understanding risk to our city using the Sendai Framework for
Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR)

Introduction:

Mike Smith-Cairns, Langara College (BC, Canada)
Kevin Gibbons, Montgomery College (Maryland)
2021-2022

You are a part of a collegewide effort to increase access to education and empower students
through "open pedagogy." Open pedagogy is a "free access" educational practice that places you
- the student - at the center of your own learning process in a more engaging, collaborative
learning environment. The ultimate purpose of this effort is to achieve greater social justice in
our community in which the work can be freely shared with the broader community. This is a
renewable assignment that is designed to enable you to become an agent of change in your
community through the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). For this work, you will integrate the disciplines of Geography and Anthropology to
achieve SDG #11: Sustainable Cities and Communities 11.5; 11.b 11.5; 11.b
Learning Objectives:
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To become aware of the variety of risks facing cities today, in particular in the City of
Vancouver (Washington, DC).
To understand that risk is increasingly systemic (relating to a system).
To appreciate the collaborative nature of risk reduction: working cross-sectors, between and
within institutions, and ensuring harmony from policy through to activity.
To familiarize with Sendai Framework for Risk Reduction
To understand that in order to be sustainable, development must be risk informed
To apply the SFRR and utilize the QRE (Quick Risk Estimation) tool to inform risk at the
municipal/local level.

Purpose/Rationale:
This exercise will allow students to fully appreciate the risks facing their city and at what level
citizens are or are not prepared for the risk. This knowledge will prove useful when analyzing risk
at the local level and how risk mitigation is integral to developing cities that are both resilient and
sustainable.

“Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is an integral part of social and economic development and is
essential if development is to be sustainable for the future. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development recognizes and reaffirms the urgent need to reduce the risk of disasters.” - UNDRR
“A resilient city is one that is able to reduce, resist, absorb, accommodate, and recover from the
impacts of hazards in a prompt and efficient manner, by preserving and restoring essential basic
structures and services.” – UNDRR

Instructions:
You have been hired by the City of Vancouver (DC gov) to make key recommendations to their
current disaster response plans. In order to better understand the risks, you will have the
opportunity to research, analyze and assess UN related disaster policy and apply it to
Vancouver/DC.
Step one, familiarize yourself with the Sendai Framework by exploring the related website here
(approx. 20-30 mins): https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/what-sendaiframework
You will also find useful information from the 10 essential tools for Resilient Cities:
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/toolkit/article/the-ten-essentials-for-makingcities-resilient
Step two, download the QRE (Quick Risk Estimation) tool here:
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/toolkit/article/quick-risk-estimation-qre
Using your own city (Vancouver or DC) for analysis, go through the instruction as described in
the QRE (approx. 1.5-2 hours).
Whether you have lived in Vancouver or DC your whole life or just arrived to the city from
elsewhere, the following websites provide detailed information regarding the city’s disaster plans
and will prove helpful when filling out the comments and justification column for your responses.
You’ll need to make educated guesses in regard to the vulnerability ratings and the current level
of response measures. Do your best to explain your scores in the comments an justification
column.
The purpose of completing the QRE is to provide you a broad overview of the all the potential
risks that are faced by the City of Vancouver/DC. You do not need to research extensively but
you do need to familiarize yourself with the city’s plans for certain risks and how they plan to
mitigate them.
City of Vancouver

https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/prepare-for-other-disasters.aspx
DC
https://ready.dc.gov/
Step three, once complete, save the QRE. Use the Data Scores, Risk Summary, and Vulnerability
Report to respond to the following questions.
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2.
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8.
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Based on your analysis, what risks are highest on the risk matrix output? What are the top
three risk scenarios most likely to occur in Vancouver/DC?
How prepared is the city when it comes to these three scenarios?
What trends emerged as you were writing the responses to the comments and
justifications section? For example, did the city seemed equally prepared for all risks?
How were they the same, how did they differ?
Why is it important to know this type of information? How can it be useful for cities and
for governments?
If you had to implement 3 of the 10 Essentials for Making Cities Resilient, which ones
should Vancouver start with?
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/toolkit/article/the-ten-essentials-formaking-cities-resilient
Why is the important for cities to adopt Sendai Framework and how might that look for
Vancouver/DC?
Do you think tools like the QRE are useful for cities in the context of sustainability? Was
there anything not found in the tool that you think would have been helpful for better
understanding risk?
What is the connection between risk assessment and sustainability in the context of
cities?
How has this exercise helped your own understanding of risk in Vancouver/DC?

Format Requirements:
Please submit your saved QRE as an excel doc., including your responses to the questions above.

Making Cities Resilient: Understanding risk to our city using the Sendai Framework for
Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) is licensed by Mike Smith-Cairns, Langara College (BC,
Canada) and Kevin Gibbons, Montgomery College (Maryland) under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY)