Building Resilience: How to Make Housing Safe Against Earthquakes and Hurricanes

This talk addresses the global crisis of unsafe housing, which threatens billions of people, and argues that disaster-related losses are largely preventable through better building practices. It outlines a comprehensive approach to strengthening homes before disasters strike, drawing on examples from Colombia, India, China, and beyond.

■ The Problem of Vulnerable Housing
- Scale: 3 billion people will live in substandard housing by 2030
- Impact: Disasters destroy decades of economic progress and cause preventable deaths

■ Principles for Resilient Construction
- Teach people how to build through on-the-job training
- Use local architecture and make small, culturally appropriate changes
- Put decision-making power in the hands of homeowners

■ Scaling Solutions
- Drive financing through conditional cash grants and technical assistance
- Leverage technology like VR and AI to assess and retrofit buildings
- Change policies to prioritize pre-disaster strengthening

This presentation is valuable for engineers, architects, policymakers, NGO workers, and anyone interested in disaster risk reduction and sustainable housing. Viewers will gain a clear understanding of why housing vulnerability persists and what practical, scalable steps can be taken to strengthen buildings before the next disaster, ultimately saving lives and livelihoods.