Drawing on five years of working with disaster-affected communities in regional and remote Australia, Australian Business Volunteers has released its evidence-based framework to ensure that communities are better prepared to withstand future disaster risks and climate induced hazards.
With over some 175 projects now delivered in some 17 local government areas, we know just how important it is that communities are supported to be connected, empowered, and in the driver's seat to plan their collective resilience and preparedness in the face of adversity, CEO Liz Mackinlay said.
“Whether it’s local services, businesses, community groups, the local government, or the local Aboriginal organisations, each of these are critical actors in preparedness and resilience more broadly in our regional and remote communities."
“They often already know what’s needed, have incredible ideas of what will make the difference, and importantly, have a remarkable amount that they can do right now to withstand adversity tomorrow.”
“Our job at ABV is to walk alongside them today, create avenues for them to come together, offer skills and support to augment their efforts, and advocate for them as a collective to get there. This evidence-based resilience framework is exactly how we do that.”
The three-pronged framework comes off the back of community-led reflections and learnings about what works in ABV’s unique programs in community-led economic and disaster resilience work on the East Coast, integrating its longstanding frameworks for inclusive and sustainable development across the Pacific.
“This is a tailored model that draws on the five frameworks that our international development team deploy in delivering programs for inclusive and sustainable development internationally, and have done so for 44 years,” Liz adds.
“Whether it’s our trauma informed framework, world-class volunteering framework, place-based planning, business continuity frameworks or the international disaster preparedness and response frameworks, this latest approach provides a relatively simple way forward for the hard work of community-led resilience in Australia that ABV has a unique contribution to make.”
Starting with meeting communities where they are at, the framework prioritises unlocking place-based resilience networks followed by practically supporting communities through partnership building, skills provision, and integration of best practice volunteering.
ABV Chief Operations Officer Jess Lees says this fills an important gap that disaster-prone communities are facing. “The Colvin review of Commonwealth disaster funding found that 92% of funding is locked in emergency response and recovery work,” Jess says.
“This is expensive and complex work, but with extreme weather events projected to significantly increase in Australia, it’s important that we’re doing all that we can to equip communities to withstand them well before the flames are high."
“This is moving beyond the immediate needs and doing the long hard work of connecting communities and leading their own resilience. We know this makes all the difference and look forward to working with communities and the other important actors in the sector to now deploy this framework and continue to revisit it with the learnings we make.”
Find out more about ABV’s Economic and Disaster Resilience framework, and how we can support you and your community lead economic and disaster resilience.
