The UN's 2026 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction theme, “Resilience Starts at Home”, highlights the importance of household and community preparedness.
Disaster resilience is a shared responsibility, requiring governments, institutions and communities to work together before hazards strike.
Early warnings and risk information must reach households in accessible, locally relevant forms that enable people to take action.
Women, young people, older people, persons with disabilities and marginalised groups must be included in disaster planning and decision-making.
India must strengthen local institutions, invest in early warning systems and safer infrastructure, and turn community participation into meaningful action.
This year, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has chosen “Resilience Starts at Home,” as the theme for the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, bringing the global agenda closer to where people live. The message is simple: a warning, which does not reach a household, is not understood or does not prompt action, actually fails.
The idea that ordinary people should help manage disaster risks is not new. It can be traced to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, whose declaration (Principle 10) set explicit goals for citizen participation in environmental and climate action. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, subsequently placed people at the centre of efforts to reduce disaster risks.
Over the past two decades, participatory approaches to planning and decision-making have become more common in climate adaptation. This year’s theme brings that tradition to its most practical level: the household.
Households are the smallest units of society, where everyday decisions can determine how well people anticipate, withstand and recover from disasters. They are also the first line of defence when a hazard strikes. But let us not confine the concept to to the walls of an individual home; it requires communities to work together so that no household is left exposed or without support.
Research on citizen engagement in climate adaptation suggests that involving communities can strengthen resilience and produce more effective and equitable outcomes. It can also foster a sense of belonging and local ownership, while enabling people to share knowledge of local risks and practical solutions. A home built or strengthened using local and indigenous knowledge, for instance, may be better suited to its surroundings than one modified by an outside agency without sustained community involvement.
None of this means that responsibility for disaster resilience rests solely with citizens. Governments, institutions and other stakeholders must create the conditions in which households and communities can prepare for and withstand hazards.
Accessible knowledge is the last mile gap
Meaningful participation begins with making knowledge accessible. Research on citizen engagement in climate adaptation suggests that good-practice guidance does not always reach the people expected to use it. Information is often written for broad audiences and remains too general to address local needs. It is more useful when tailored to local conditions and to a community's experience of participation.
The flow of knowledge is also uneven in the other direction. Lessons generated locally rarely reach regional or national platforms, meaning that what works in one village may never inform planning in the next. This is the last-mile challenge highlighted by this year's theme: information may exist, but it does not always reach the people who need it. Skilled knowledge brokers, who connect technical expertise with local experience, can help bridge that gap.
Closing it also requires attention to whose voices are heard. Community engagement can favour people who are already active, informed or well connected, leaving marginalised groups and those with less influence on the sidelines. Young people, older people and persons with disabilities may face particular barriers to participation. Digital tools can deepen these exclusions when people lack internet access, suitable devices or the skills to use them.
In disaster-prone areas, those missing from community discussions may be the people living in the most exposed or insecure homes. Including them is therefore both a matter of fairness and a practical necessity. Disaster plans that overlook the most vulnerable cannot adequately protect the whole community.
Risk information should be specific to guide action
Communities need clear, accessible and science-based information to make informed decisions. Yet people often lack reliable guidance on the hazards they face and the steps they can take to reduce their exposure. Without such information, participation risks becoming symbolic rather than meaningful. So information must be specific enough to guide action, rather than simply raise awareness.
Participation must also lead to tangible results. Practitioners often find that public consultation is treated as a procedural requirement, with little influence on final decisions. Such exercises can breed fatigue and distrust, particularly when people feel their views have been ignored. When communities see their suggestions reflected in decisions, however, they have stronger reasons to invest time and effort in making their homes and neighbourhoods safer.
Turning participation into action requires sustained investment in education and training, institutions that engage communities over time, and mechanisms for learning from each intervention. At the local level, this means involving residents in hazard mapping and emergency planning, responding to their concerns and ensuring that women, older people, young people and persons with disabilities are included from the outset. Communities must have both the information and the opportunity to shape the plans intended to protect them.
Empower local institutions
India already has a policy framework that points in this direction. The prime minister's 10-point agenda for disaster risk reduction, outlined at the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in New Delhi in 2016, calls for greater reliance on local capacity and initiative, stronger involvement and leadership of women, investment in risk mapping and systematic learning from disasters. It also calls for disaster risk management to be integrated across development sectors.
The challenge is to translate these commitments into practice at the level of the village, ward and household, where resilience is built and tested. This requires local institutions to have the resources, information and authority to act, alongside sustained support from governments and technical agencies.
The theme “Resilience Starts at Home” should not be interpreted as shifting the burden of disaster preparedness on to ordinary people. Governments at every level must strengthen last-mile connectivity, provide reliable early warning systems, invest in safer infrastructure and equip communities to prepare for and respond to emergencies.
Resilience depends on people and institutions continuing to work together, long before a hazard strikes and after the immediate crisis has passed. When people are informed, heard and supported, they are better placed to protect themselves and their communities.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth