Frontline introduction

latest development of Views from the Frontline

Frontline: A programme that uniquely finds out from local people what threats they face:

Billions of people across the world at the Frontline of disasters face the everyday reality of multiple threats of all kinds, both extraordinary and everyday, impacting their lives and livelihoods. Many are poorly understood or documented. Local communities are often left to deal with them through self organisation and self reliance. They develop detailed local knowledge of threats, their consequences, the capacities they have to address them and the barriers of underlying risk factors they face. This knowledge is the starting point for action at all levels – local, national and global – understanding and strengthening the resilience of communities; enabling communities and households to protect and enhance their lives, livelihoods and assets. Frontline is uniquely able to gather and share this knowledge.

Frontline context: the realities the programme addresses

• Substantial local level losses are from everyday disasters.
• Locally people learn how to manage inter-related environmental, social, economic and political threats.
• Local communities are first responders and possess detailed experiential risk knowledge of these threats, their consequences, local capacities and barriers.

Frontline: gathering local risk knowledge

• Local knowledge of all threats, everyday and extraordinary
• Supporting and strengthening local action and learning to build resilience
• Analysing data based on local realities to provide risk knowledge and complementary local monitoring at local, national and global level
• Resilience focus based on local realities, encompassing Risk reduction, Sustainable development and Climate Adaptation.

Frontline is the latest development of the Views from the Frontline programme and is founded in GNDR's ten essentials of the 'Reality Checklist for Impact at the Frontline'.