Wild Ndipo, the Mayor of Blantyre said: “Disaster risk management is everyone’s business. We must ensure inclusivity as we build community resilience across the five dimensions of social, physical, natural, economical and institutional capacities. As the president of the Malawi Local Government Association I will strongly advocate to my colleagues to engage in resilience efforts.”

Sharing the experience of Cape Town, the Director of Resilience Corporate Services, Gareth Morgan, emphasized the importance of coordination for disaster risk reduction.

Reflecting on the recent drought or the Day Zero crisis, in the city, he said, “The fact that everyone in the city understood the gravity of the drought crisis influenced behavioral change around water consumption, which was so efficient that there was no need to ration the water supply.”

Mr. Morgan added: “I fear that the lessons learned from the Day Zero crisis may be forgotten, and this pushes us to ensure that the actions called for in the Resilience Strategy for the City of Cape Town are planned for and realized.”

The city of Cape Town is one of the role model cities of the Making Cities Resilient Campaign as a result of the city’s Informal Settlement Upgrading and Ecosystem Protection.

The participants appreciated the peer learning aspect of the workshop and called for more such opportunities to share good practices, knowledge and experience.

The Mayor of Mutare, Zimbabwe, Councilor Blessing Tandi emphasized the sense of urgency in building the resilience of communities in the region.

While signing up to the Making Cities Resilient Campaign, he said: “We must act now rather than later, for resilience. I will take the lessons learnt at this meeting to my fellow mayors back home. I appeal to our partners UNDRR and ICLEI to extend their support to us as we pursue resilience building efforts in our cities.”

The city of Mutare joins the over 4,000 cities participating in the global campaign to date.