Strengthening Urban Earthquake Preparedness ONE UN Solutions for Safer and More Resilient Cities

Earthquakes remain one of the most devastating urban hazards in the UNECE region, with recent events exposing critical gaps in preparedness, governance, housing safety, and post-disaster recovery. This ONE UN event will showcase how UNECE, UN-Habitat and UNDRR are jointly advancing a coherent, solution-oriented approach to urban earthquake preparedness, resilience, and recovery - linking housing, urban planning, risk governance, and disaster preparedness under a common framework. The session will present concrete tools, policy approaches and operational experiences emerging from ongoing work on seismic preparedness and response in the Europe and Central Asia region, including comparative analysis of national and local frameworks, lessons from major earthquakes in the region, and emerging good practices in resilient housing, urban infrastructure, and institutional coordination. It will highlight how these efforts are being aligned with the priorities of the Sendai Framework for DRR , global efforts for locally-led DRR through initiative such as the Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative and UN-Habitat’s urban resilience and housing recovery approaches. Using an interactive format, the event will bring together national and local governments, UN agencies, technical experts and city representatives to discuss how cities can move from reactive response to proactive preparedness—strengthening building safety, land-use planning, housing resilience, and emergency governance before disasters strike. The session will also introduce the upcoming Regional Framework on Seismic preparedness and outline pathways for scaling technical assistance and city-to-city learning across the Europe and Central Asia region. The event will conclude with a forward-looking dialogue on strengthening ONE UN collaboration to support cities in translating seismic risk knowledge into actionable, finance-ready urban resilience measures.