Resilience Building & Capacity Development
Disasters, caused by natural hazards, occur regularly and have affected people throughout history. Disasters cause loss of lives, destroy valuable investments and threaten a sustainable development.
Climate change will result in even more intense disasters in the future and due to population growth, urbanisation and widespread poverty, more people will be affected.
MSB works in partnership with national disaster risk management organisations, regional/ international organisations and other actors, to enhance the capacity to reduce disaster risks and build resilience. Our long-term capacity development initiatives aim at strengthening capacities on individual, organisational and systemic levels and include institutional and operational support to strengthen capacity to prevent, prepare and manage future disasters and crises.
About the resilience building programme
Our resilience building programme focuses on three main thematic areas i) Crisis coordination and management, ii) Civil protection preparedness for response and iii) Risk and vulnerability assessment. All projects have a strong integration of gender equality and environmental perspectives, and are implemented through a solid monitoring and evaluation framework.
MSB’s capacity development and resilience building initiatives are guided by international frameworks such as The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Action and the Paris Agreement, as well as by national policies and strategies forming the Swedish development cooperation together with the mandate and expertise of MSB.
Capacity Development Guide
Article identifier: MSB1162–January2018
Issued year: 2019
Capacity development is about change and learning. We took on the development challenge from what we knew best, with a humanitarian mind-set and fix-it approach. We experienced some missed opportuniti...
Cross-cutting issues
To achieve better results and to contribute to more equal and sustainable societies, we integrate cross-cutting issues, such as environment and gender equality in all our projects. To measure results and to be able to adapt strategies and the design of capacity development activities to each project and partner, it is also important to have well-designed systems for monitoring and evaluation with focus on learning. MSB has internal advisors for gender equality, environment and monitoring & evaluation involved in all its resilience building and capacity development projects.
MSB1394 Gender equality toolkit: practical advice for international operationsOngoing development projects
Currently, MSB has ongoing regional capacity development projects in the Eastern Partnership region, (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia), the South Asian and South East Asian regions and in the IPA countries in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia) and Turkey. Bilateral projects are being implemented in Iraq (including Iraqi Kurdistan) and Armenia.

A prerequisite for MSB to engage in development cooperation for capacity development is external funding for project implementation. The projects we carry out are funded mainly by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the European Union.
Regional projects
MSB's regional capacity development projects are usually planned and implemented in a consortium with other European civil protection agencies or organisations with expertise in disaster risk management. The projects have both a national and a regional dimension, often aimed at creating a common understanding of methods and processes for how natural disasters, which are often transboundary, can be prevented and managed and can indirectly contribute to stability in the region.
Leveraging ASEAN Capacities for Emergency Response, LACER
International Training Programme Disaster Risk Management (ITP DRM)
Bilateral projects
The basis of bilateral cooperation is a strong partner dialogue where partners' needs in relation to the expertise MSB can offer are at the centre. These projects often include competence from the entire Swedish crisis preparedness system from local, regional and national level.
Latest reviewed: 15 March 2022