UDRR Project
BDRCS Urban Resilience Building Through Advanced Networking, Coordination, Knowledge & Innovation Project (referred to as the BDRCS Urban Resilience Project or in short, UDRR Project).
MOU signing with Dhaka University for the fellowship program.
Background of UDRR
Given the current and potential risk and great loss of life posed by urban hazards, especially in terms of earthquakes, fires and fragile structures, there is significant evidence for room for improvement and need for inclusive urban DRR. However, this is still not being considered or addressed as a high priority by stakeholders. Although many governmental, national, and international organizations are now working to address these needs, there is still a dire need to support urban communities to have access to basic amenities and help them build their capacity and resilience to urban hazards. Resilience has also become a focal goal of many cities, particularly in the face of climate change and the UNDRR’s Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MRC2030) campaign. Fostering resilience amongst environmental, socioeconomic, and political uncertainty and risk is a challenge in Bangladesh, to say the least.
In the aforesaid context, BDRCS, along with German Red Cross has evolved as a key player and leader among the RCRC partners to steer the urban ambition. After two capacities and projects implemented (DEEP & DEEPER) in urban centers over the past 4 years, this ambition has grown stronger by the virtue of the investments made at local level on system strengthening, building local response capacities, and enlarging the volunteers pool through coaching and technical trainings. The UDRR project is part of a regional support of German Red Cross to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar from 2022-2025.
Key Result Areas of UDRR
- Strengthening Urban Preparedness & Capacity Development of local actors: This result focuses on the capacity development of local authorities including the national society for building local response capacity through trainings, curriculum development in the current context.
- Urban Research, Knowledge Management & Partnership / Alliance Building: This will explore partnerships with the academia, Disaster Management institutions and different urban alliance/groups working on Urban preparedness and risk reduction.
- Coordination, Innovation & Exchange: This aims to coordinate within different movement partners and with other urban actors in the sector for learning, innovation, and exchange on urban resilience with a goal of further enabling environment for urban DRM.
Major Achievements
ToT on Basic Facilitation Skill Development & Multi hazard Risk and Vulnerability assessment and Early Warning
A national-level master trainer pool, comprising Disaster Risk Reduction Officers (DRROs), Public Information Officers (PIOs), as well as urban planners and geographers from across the country, has undergone this Training of Trainers (ToT). They are anticipated to effectively disseminate and apply their learnings as key players in disaster management at the local level in Bangladesh.
Participants during the Master Trainer Pool ToT representing the DRROs, PIOs, urban planners and geographers from different districts.
Road safety campaign where RCY was deployed to assist the traffic police enforcer during the SSC examination.
Road Safety Awareness Program:
Phase 01: A 12-day long road safety and awareness campaign that deployed 76 RCY volunteers from both BDRCS NHQ and Dhaka City units to 12 strategically crowded locations in Dhaka during the SSC examination in May 2023, assisting the traffic polices in maintaining the road traffic and safety rules among the city-dwellers especially, the children, youths, and the examinee youths.
Phase 02: This was a 21-day long similar campaign, deploying 93 RCY volunteers from both BDRCS NHQ and Dhaka City units to 15 strategically crowded locations in Dhaka during the HSC examination in August 2023.
Urban Fellowship with the Universities:
This Fellowship activity under UDRR funded 12 master’s level students from two departments of Dhaka University and 07 master’s students from different relevant disciplines of Rajshahi University on their research, aiming to building active partnerships in research on urban Disaster Preparedness (DP) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) on the urban emerging hazards.
Research Papers
Here are the papers those were supported under the fellowship program with the Dhaka university.
Fellowship grant event with Dhaka University fellows
Institute of Disaster Management & Vulnerability Studies (IDMVS)
Heat Wave and High Temperature- Sheikh Mohiuddin Shahrujjaman
Impact of Environmental Migration- Maliha Muhtasim
Individual Climate Actions-Mourupa Mohima
Prioritization of Urban Adaptation for CC- Fahmid Mohtasin
7th Urban Dialogue organized by the Urban INGO forum together with BDRCS and GRC
Collaboration in the 7th Urban Dialogue 2023:
BDRCS UDRR Project collaborated in organizing the 7th Urban Dialogue held in June 2023, with the theme, “Redefining Resilience of Cities and its Services”. This Dialogue is held every year and has become a vibrant national space for urban development. BDRCS took part in one of the parallel sessions and focused on the Anticipatory Actions along with their overall urban engagements and put forward 04 major urban recommendations on behalf of the overall RCRC Movement in Bangladesh.
Collaboration with Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN) in awareness raising against preventable deaths:
BDRCS UDRR project co- organized the commemoration of the International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths (IAD4AD) for 2024 in Bangladesh through contributing to the National Seminar on Avoidable Disaster Deaths, held in the University of Dhaka on 9th March 2024, along with sharing BDRCS’ valuable insights from working in disaster risk reduction and management in the panel discussions.
Funding:
UDRR Project is funded by German Red Cross.
