International Day for Disaster Risk reduction Good Practice sharing webinar

Background and rationale

Disaster resilience is built first inside the household, long before a hazard strikes and long before formal responders arrive. The 2026 theme for the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR), observed every 13 October, is “Resilience starts at home”. This webinar turns that idea into practical guidance and shared commitments.

In most emergencies, families and neighbours act first. What a household knows, stores, plans and protects decides how quickly it recovers. Yet household preparedness is often the least funded and least visible layer of disaster risk reduction, and the people with the fewest resources, including women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities and residents of informal settlements, are usually the most exposed.

The theme also connects global policy to daily life. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 calls for understanding risk, strengthening governance, investing in resilience and improving preparedness. The Early Warnings for All initiative depends on warnings reaching the last mile: the household that must act on them.

The webinar will show that many resilience actions are low cost and within a family’s control:

• Making homes safer, from structural checks to securing heavy items
• Preparing an emergency kit and a family communication and evacuation plan
• Knowing local hazards and understanding early warning messages
• Looking out for vulnerable neighbours and joining community preparedness groups

• Leveraging smart and connected tools: Integrating accessible consumer IoT devices (such as smart sensors, local emergency alert apps, or connected home security tools) to monitor environmental hazards and receive early warnings at the household level.

  To make this tangible, the webinar will also draw on first-hand stories of resilience and disaster risk reduction, from individual household actions to community, national and global efforts, so participants can see how these principles play out in practice

• Objectives and expected outcomes

• The webinar aims to help participants leave with clear, practical steps to strengthen resilience in their own homes and communities, while gathering stories of household and community resilience and disaster risk reduction more broadly to use in messaging and promotion.

• Objectives

• Explain why household-level action is central to disaster risk reduction and the Sendai Framework.
• Share practical experience from emergency operations on what helps households and communities survive and recover.
• Highlight the role of partners and community advocates in advancing disaster risk reduction, from the household to the community level.
• Encourage participants to make a personal or organisational commitment to resilience, at home and in their wider community.
• Capture stories of household and community resilience, and promote the conversation through partner and social media channels (including the Member Drive / SEM push).

• Expected outcomes

• Participants can name at least three actions a household can take before, during and after a disaster.
• Stronger links between UNDRR, partners, responders and community advocates.
• A set of participant commitments and a short list of resources shared after the event.
• A bank of household and community resilience stories and quotes captured for messaging and promotion.