Disaster resilience starts where we live.

Homes are where people live, sleep, and care for one another, and seek shelter and security. For many, they are central to wellbeing and stability. However, the ways homes are planned, built, financed and maintained determine whether risk is reduced or created.

When houses are located in high-risk areas, built without disaster-resilient designs, or inadequately maintained to withstand growing hazards, homes become sites of vulnerability, contributing to loss of lives, displacement and economic losses. These risks often have differentiated impacts on women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, low-income households and gender-diverse groups, particularly where inequalities in housing, land tenure, access to resources, mobility, caregiving responsibilities and decision-making persist.

The Midterm Review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework found persistent challenges in enforcing risk-sensitive land-use and building regulations, and in effectively involving communities and households in disaster risk reduction decision-making. It highlighted that many countries still lack adequate mechanisms to ensure resilient construction in hazard-prone areas. People living in informal settlements often remain underserved by planning processes, risk reduction measures and building regulation, with marginalized groups frequently facing additional challenges to secure housing, access to services, and participation in local decision-making.

Whether homes are resilient depends on the combined actions of governments, local authorities, the private sector, and households. States bear the primary responsibility to reduce disaster risk, but real estate developers, construction companies, financiers, and insurers also shape exposure and vulnerability through decisions on where and how houses are built, the materials and standards used, and the availability of risk-informed financing and insurance products. Strengthening accountability and incentives across these actors is essential to ensure housing resilience, including through inclusive and risk-informed housing policies, accessible and affordable financing and insurance mechanisms, universal design principles, and meaningful participation of women, persons with disabilities and local communities in housing and urban planning processes.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 establishes disaster risk reduction as a people-centred endeavour, emphasising that policies, systems, and investments must be designed around the needs and capacities of individuals and communities, recognising that disaster risks and impacts are not experienced equally across populations.

Nowhere is this principle more relevant than at home – the most personal and fundamental environment in people's lives.