This report summarizes the Technical Deep Dive on Seismic Risk and Resilience with the GFDRR Disaster Risk Management Hub in Tokyo.

The objectives of the TDD were to support clients and World Bank teams to address the following aspects of their projects:

  1. What are the facts to make the case?
    • Confirming the importance, economic arguments, and feasibility of investing in seismic resilience.
  2. What are the investment options to plan and design?
    • Opening the range of interventions and investments available to take on seismic risk.
  3. What are the technical details to implement?
    • Connecting the expertise, solutions, and technical and policy details that can support and enhance interventions and investments.

The event enabled participating countries to learn from Japan’s wealth of experience and expertise in the generation, communication, and application of risk information to reduce the human and economic losses caused by earthquakes and tsunamis. Japanese experts and practitioners from the public sector, private sector, and academia led interactive sessions and field visits in the cities of Tokyo, Kobe, and Sendai.

Although the Seismic Risk and Resilience TDD covered a broad range of topics, spanning the DRM cycle, particular attention was given to seismic risk reduction in the built environment. The TDD drew on the work of the Building Regulation for Resilience (BRR) Program, a global initiative working to strengthen the building regulatory capacity of developing countries. Japan is a world leader in integrating seismic risk information into the design of the built environment; country participants had the
opportunity to tap into this experience through a series of thematic sessions and site visits.