DEPP developing a locally led response

The Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP) invests in developing the longer-term capacity of people and their communities, in countries most at risk from natural disaster or conflict. This briefing paper explains our approach to locally-led crisis response.

In a crisis, local people and local agencies are usually first to respond. Our DEPP projects have worked together to develop their capacities in three ways:

Improving individuals’ knowledge and understanding, so they are better able to respond to an emergency.
Transforming local communities and organisations so that they can work better together, be more inclusive of the elderly and disabled, and know how to call in back up when needed.
Improving early warning systems so that countries, regions, communities and governments have more time to respond to a crisis.

We've made great progress developing capacity for locally led crisis response, and organisations we work with can see real change. But this is only the beginning: we need to continue investing in preparedness to ensure that projects become sustainable, otherwise they may fizzle out and gains we have made will be lost." SHAHIDA ARIF, DEPP ASIA REGIONAL LEARNING ADVISER, BASED IN PAKISTAN