Communities - the new local resilience capability

During COVID-19 communities around the globe have proved to be an invaluable resilience capability. We have witnessed community responses on a scale and diversity that was previously unthinkable with invisible acts of good neighbourliness, donations by businesses of all sizes, and the creation of thousands of mutual aid groups, all on top of all the work of the voluntary sector.

We now need to galvanise the progress made, identify and remove barriers for communities to flourish, and co-produce a new understanding of risk, vulnerability and capability through communities.

Renewal of community resilience can involve establishing it as a permanent local resilience capability. To achieve this we now need to sustain what has been created by communities, local government, community groups, small businesses, neighbours, individuals, social enterprises, the voluntary sector, and so many more hidden networks.

In the wake of all these community efforts this webinar asks whether community resilience can be a new local and national resilience capability, and explores different models of community action from the US, Chile and the UK to illustrate how this might be achieved.

Panel:

Duncan Shaw – Professor of Operations and Critical Systems, Alliance Manchester Business School

Fernando Padilla - National Director of the Volunteer Programme, National Youth Institute Chile

Suu-Va Tai – President of Community Emergency Responses Teams (CERT), US

Hannah Tankard - Business Emergency Resilience Campaign Director, Business In The Community

Find out more about The Manchester Briefing here

Project partners and funders: