The Towards a Safer Built Environment: Risk-Informed Policy Making and Implementation session at UR22 Florianopolis brought together experts from the Building Regulation for Resilience Global Program at the World Bank, the Disaster Risk Reduction Unit at UNESCO, as well as resilient built environment experts from Zanzibar, the Maldives and Guatemala. The session offered a glimpse into some of the activities UNESCO is leading to increase the capacity of governments in Latin America to systematically address seismic resilience by prioritizing training construction engineers on how to build safe new buildings. The session also raised awareness on the offerings available from the World Bank to strengthen the legal enabling environment for the implementation of building codes, developing and adopting building codes that are inclusive, and strengthening the building approval process by adopting an epermitting system that drives efficiencies and strengthens coordination among stakeholders.
“Stakeholder engagement is very important in implementing regulations for resilience, because, if a new regulation is mandatory, it needs to have social consensus. Without engaging stakeholders like individuals, or businesses, we cannot just implement what scientists say. There must be a communication and co-design process. However, we understand that, while we need to aim higher, we need to act quickly to save lives.”
