Resilience in action: Strengthening local capacity in Guyana

Guyana’s development is closely shaped by an evolving landscape of risk. The country’s diverse landscape, ranging from a narrow, low-lying coastal plain to a hillier sandy region, the Rupununi savannahs of the south, and vast tropical rainforests and interior highlands, shapes both its development and its exposure to risk. These include coastal flooding and sea level rise, riverine and rainfall-induced flooding, drought, and wildfires, with the adverse effects of climate change altering the intensity and frequency of many of these hazardous events.

These realities are no longer distant risks, they are shaping how people live, work, and plan for the future. And increasingly, it is at the local level where the most meaningful responses need to take shape.

The urgency to strengthen disaster risk reduction has been reinforced globally, particularly through the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which highlights the need to accelerate action before 2030. Yet its Midterm Review delivered a clear message: while progress has been made, efforts at the local level remain insufficient. With the 2030 deadline approaching, it is increasingly clear that resilience must be built where disasters are first felt, in cities, towns, and communities.

In Guyana, this shift toward local action is gaining momentum. Through the Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) initiative, efforts are underway to strengthen resilience at the local level. Initiated in 2025, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), in close collaboration with the Civil Defence Commission (CDC), the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, and the Mayor and Town Council of Lethem, launched this process with the generous support of the Government of Australia, alongside the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office and partners. Working alongside national institutions, local authorities, and a wide range of stakeholders, the process focuses on assessing capacities, identifying gaps, and supporting the development of local governance plans for disaster risk reduction and resilience. These efforts contribute to a broader movement to ensure that resilience is not just a concept, but something that is embedded in how cities and communities function.

The process also connects closely with Guyana’s progress under the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative, which marked a critical step toward strengthening multi‑hazard early warning systems to protect lives, livelihoods, and assets. As with resilience more broadly, the effectiveness of early warning systems depends on how well national frameworks translate into local action: how information reaches people, how it is understood, and how it supports timely response. By grounding resilience planning in local realities, the MCR2030 initiative is helping to strengthen these vital links.

To reflect the diversity of risk across the country, the initiative focused on two distinct urban centers: Georgetown and Lethem. Each offers a different perspective on hazard, exposure, vulnerability and resilience, highlighting why local context matters.

In Georgetown, the country’s capital and economic hub, as the center of government, commerce, and services, the challenges are shaped by its geography. The city lies on a narrow coastal plain, much of it below sea level, protected by a long-standing seawall, a canal network and stands of mangroves. Yet despite these protections, flooding remains a persistent challenge. Heavy rainfall, combined with clogged drains or pump failures, can quickly lead to widespread inundation.

What has become clear through local engagement is that many of the challenges are not just technical, but institutional. While different agencies are actively working to manage risk, coordination has often been limited. Bringing stakeholders together revealed a shared understanding that more integrated, proactive planning is needed. There is growing recognition that resilience depends on how well information is shared, how systems are connected, and how decisions are made collectively rather than in isolation.

It also brought forward a set of practical, locally driven actions to strengthen resilience. These include improving the clarity and accessibility of early warning messages so they reach all communities with gender‑inclusive and accessible language, developing disaster risk reduction plans that reflect diversity and the needs of most-at-risk groups, expanding training to ensure responders and institutions are better prepared, strengthening data sharing and interagency coordination, and advancing risk mapping and real-time monitoring. For a city like Georgetown, building resilience means not only strengthening infrastructure, but also strengthening the systems and partnerships that support it.

In Lethem, Guyana’s southern urban center bordering Brazil, these challenges are shaped by the surrounding landscape and its seasonal rhythms. As the central business hub of Region 9, the town sits within the Rupununi savannah, a mosaic of open grasslands, wetlands, rivers, and forest patches that becomes especially dynamic as seasons change. During the rainy season, rising rivers overflow and inundate low-lying savannahs and communities, disrupting livelihoods, damaging infrastructure, and limiting access to essential services. As the seasons shift, prolonged dry conditions increase the risk of wildfires, which can spread rapidly across the savannah and affect farmlands and nearby communities.

Through the MCR2030 engagement, stakeholders in Lethem deepened their understanding of these risks and identified actions that reflect local realities. The discussions helped surface a range of actions grounded in local realities, including consultations with Indigenous communities to integrate local knowledge into planning, the importance of strengthening preparedness through targeted training, including for women, the development of gender-responsive building codes and standards, and the need for infrastructure that is safe and accessible.

Across both Georgetown and Lethem, the outcomes of these efforts go beyond plans on paper. They are already strengthening relationships, improving understanding of risk, and creating space for collaboration where it did not always exist before. Stakeholders who once worked separately are now engaging in shared dialogue, building a more coordinated approach to managing disasters and reducing risk.

There is still much work ahead, particularly in moving from planning to implementation. But the foundations have been laid. By investing in local capacity, strengthening governance, and connecting national priorities to local realities, Guyana is taking meaningful steps toward a more resilient future.

And in the face of growing uncertainty, that local foundation may be its greatest strength. 

This story was first published by UNDRR.