Many countries are now suffering after years of insufficient attention to warnings about the need for improved pandemic preparedness. The WHO has declared COVID-19 a pandemic, but its underlying factors, vulnerabilities and impacts go far beyond the health sector, and in Sri Lanka, it is overwhelming government and response agencies. This study will address two, inter-related challenges: How will countries cope if a major natural hazard occurs while the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing? How can pandemic preparedness make use of the existing infrastructure for tackling other hazards? The project team will attempt to understand the potential impact of a pandemic-natural hazard hybrid scenario. It will also seek to improve early warning and preparedness for such an event, as well as the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEW) and disaster risk information that include pandemic/biological hazards, which is also Target G of the SFDRR [1]. We will address these challenges by examining how public health actors be better included within a MHEW environment and how pandemic threats are integrated within national and local DRR strategies. We will explore the impact of COVID-19 on the response capabilities for other hazards, either multiple simultaneous events, or cascading impacts, and consider how COVID-19 and public health surveillance can be synergised with "the last mile" of MHEW. Pandemic is global, but the preparedness and response is local, and that response is very dependent on governance, laws, culture, risk perception and citizen behaviour. The study has been designed in close collaboration with Sri Lankan health and DRR agencies who identified the key gaps that need exploring. The team will develop and disseminate guidance to better incorporate pandemics and other biological hazards into national and local DRR preparedness and response

There is significant evidence of the growth of natural disasters on a global level. The Asia-Pacific region continues to be the world's most disaster prone region; it has many low-/middle-income countries and accounted for 47% of the world's 344 disasters in 2015 with 16,046 fatalities and reported economic damage in the region of US$ 5.1 Billion. In this context, the most disaster-prone sub-region is South Asia, recording 52 disasters and 14,647 deaths, representing 64% of the global fatalities, in 2015. Scientific research has shown that disaster risks do not only exist because of the presence of a physical hazard; they are compounded by the presence of vulnerability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to shift our focus from pure emergency response and recovery towards a sustainable disaster mitigation framework that focuses on building resilience within a disaster prone area, involving government agencies and the local community to reduce the impact of a hazard. However, at present there is a lack of tools and methods available to agencies to enable them to come together to understand the underlying vulnerabilities of a disaster prone area and build resilience to reduce disaster impact on a community. Digital technology has the potential for creating a collaboration environment for various agencies and communities to act collectively to reduce the impact of disasters. The goal of this project is to develop a Collaborative Multi-agency Platform that can be used for building resilient communities in disaster prone areas in low-/middle-income countries. The project will focus on the challenges faced by three countries: Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These countries are frequently affected by a multitude of natural hazards including floods, landslides, cyclones, droughts, and earthquakes and have therefore been chosen as the focus for this research to capture broader set of disaster conditions and requirements common to low-/middle-income countries. The project aims to address the following research questions: What is the nature of a resilience framework that will allow low-/middle-income countries to assess their vulnerabilities and resilience capabilities and take measures to build resilient communities? How can we enhance multi-agency collaboration within low-/middle-income countries? What changes are required in terms of technology, organizational structures and collaboration processes to enhance multi-agency collaboration? What are the characteristics of a collaboration platform that can support collective vulnerability assessment and reduction by multi-agencies? How can we establish a system dynamic model that can support the simulation of cascading effect on critical infrastructure systems due to a hazard? How can we construct a collaborative 3D environment based on near real-time 3D satellite data and analysis for supporting early response and damage assessment after a major disaster? In addressing itself to these questions, the project will lead to development of an advanced digital platform that can be used in low-/middle-income countries to strengthen their resilience capacities for disaster. The project team is comprised of University of Salford (THINKlab & Centre for Disaster Resilience), the Universities of Moratuwa & Colombo (Sri Lanka), Tun Hussein Onn University (Malaysia) and the University of Peshawar (Pakistan). This team will be supported by a broad set of project partners, including industry and government agencies who are playing a key role in disaster resilience city agenda in UK, including: the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat, the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum, Rockefeller Foundation, Environment Agency, the Satellite Applications Catapult, Telespazio Vega Ltd and Secure Information Assurance Ltd. Similarly, in each partner country we have established industry and government agency stakeholder groups to engage and steer the project to achieve a greater impact.

The Hub will reduce disaster risk for the poor in tomorrow's cities. The failure to integrate disaster risk resilience into urban planning and decision-making is a persistent intractable challenge that condemns hundreds of millions of the World's poor to continued cyclical destruction of their lives and livelihoods. It presents a major barrier to the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals in expanding urban systems. Science and technology can help, but only against complex multi-hazard context of urban life and the social and cultural background to decision-making in developing countries. Science-informed urbanisation, co-produced and properly integrated with decision support for city authorities, offers the possibility of risk-sensitive development for millions of the global poor. This is a major opportunity - some 60% of the area expected to be urban by 2030 is yet to be built. Our aim is to catalyse a transition from crisis management to risk-informed planning in four partner cities and globally through collaborating International governance organisations. The Hub, co-designed with local and international stakeholders from the start, will deliver this agenda through integrated research across four urban systems - Istanbul, Kathmandu, Nairobi and Quito - chosen for their multi-hazard exposure, and variety of urban form, development status and governance. Trusted core partnerships from previous Global Challenge Research Fund, Newton Fund and UK Research Council projects provide solid foundations on which city based research projects have been built around identified, existing, policy interventions to provide research solutions to specific current development problems. We have developed innovative, strategic research and impact funds and capable management processes constantly to monitor progress and to reinforce successful research directions and impact pathways. In each urban system, the Hub will reduce risk for 1-4 million people by (1) Co-producing forensic examinations of risk root causes, drivers of vulnerability and trend analysis of decision-making culture for key, historic multi-hazard events. (2) Combining quantitative, multi-hazard intensity, exposure and vulnerability analysis using advances in earth observation, citizen science, low cost sensors and high-resolution surveys with institutional and power analysis to allow multi-hazard risk assessment to interface with urban planning culture and engineering. (3) Convene diverse stakeholder groups-communities, schools, municipalities private enterprise, national agencies- around new understanding of multi-hazard urban disaster risk stimulating engagement and innovation in making risk-sensitive development choices to help meet the SDGs and Sendai Framework. Impact will occur both within and beyond the life of the Hub and will raise the visibility of cities in global risk analysis and policy making. City Partnerships, integrating city authorities, researchers, community leaders and the private sector, will develop and own initiatives including high-resolution validated models of multi-hazard risk to reflect individual experience and inform urban development planning, tools and methods for monitoring, evaluation and audit of disaster risk, and recommendations for planning policy to mitigate risks in future development. City partnerships will collaborate with national and regional city networks, policy champions and UN agencies using research outputs to structure city and community plans responding to the Sendai Framework and targeted SDG indicators, and build methods and capacity for reporting and wider critique of the SDG and Sendai reporting process. Legacy will be enabled through the ownership of risk assessment and resilience building tools by city and international partners who will identify need, own, modify and deploy tools beyond the life of the Hub.