ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the reasons for the Red Cross/Red Crescent to focus on prevention and mitigation, which complement the traditional role of provider of emergency relief. It analyses the elements of the resilience approach that the Red Cross/Red Crescent applies, and argues how some of these pose a challenge to the way the organisation can apply its fundamental principles. The subsequent International Strategy for Disaster Reduction recognised that disasters were hardly ever 'natural' but rather socially constructed. The centrality of 'vulnerability''illustrates the increasing recognition that disasters and development are intimately linked, and that disaster can be managed by managing vulnerability. With poverty and vulnerability intrinsically linked, this placed disaster risk management more in the domain of development. The chapter focuses on vulnerability and development, then on disaster risk reduction, and finally, on building resilience, culminating, in relation to 'The Road to Urban Resilience'.
