LocationsResilience starts at home: How Central Asian cities are preparing for disaster risk
October 13, 2026
Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Disasters cost the world around US$2.3 trillion yearly. Yet less than one percent of public budgets go toward reducing that risk before it strikes. Most spending still goes to humanitarian response and recovery, not prevention and risk reduction.
The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is an opportunity to highlight what can be done before disaster strikes. This year’s theme, “Resilience Starts at Home,” focuses on where the impacts of disasters are ultimately felt: in people’s homes, schools and communities. Our work in Central Asia offers a window into what building that resilience can look like in practice.
Earthquakes, avalanches, floods, landslides, heatwaves, droughts and dust storms are not rare events in Central Asia. Annual disaster damage and losses total more than $10 billion, affecting more than 3 million people in the region.
Earthquakes alone cost the region roughly $2 billion a year. Almaty was struck in 1911; Ashgabat and Tashkent were destroyed in the 1948 and 1966 earthquakes, respectively. The seismic risk has not gone away. In fact, it has grown significantly, with rapid urban growth and expansion in the last few decades.
Hazards and actual disaster events go beyond geopolitical borders. Flash floods that start upstream in one country reach communities downstream in the neighboring country. Dust storms travel from the deserts of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the glaciers of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, affecting their albedo — the ability of snow to reflect sunlight— and increasing salt content, which leads to more heat absorption and faster melting.
Alatau mountains overlooking Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The response to this regional challenge has to be regional as well.
Since 2025, UNDP and Japan are implementing two regional initiatives across six Central Asian cities. The urban resilience project covers Petropavl in Kazakhstan, Osh in the Kyrgyz Republic, Dushanbe in Tajikistan, Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Namangan in Uzbekistan.
The earthquake resilience project swaps Petropavl for Almaty in Kazakhstan, given its seismic exposure, while the other four pilot cities remain the same. Both projects are built on a simple idea: you cannot manage a risk you don’t understand.
Understanding risk, in our case, started with the urban resilience project and the City Risk Profiles — ground-level assessments of what threatens each city, from mudflows in Osh to extreme heat in Dushanbe and droughts in Namangan.
The City Risk Profiles also show patterns that those cities share across the region. For example, Osh, Dushanbe, Ashgabat and Namangan all face hazards originating from the surrounding mountains.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
From there, the main work began. We’ve turned those findings into recommendations for plans that govern how cities develop. Dushanbe, for instance, has embedded climate and disaster resilience priorities into its 2026–2030 Socio-Economic Development Programme.
“Bringing this approach into our planning reduces the potential damages and losses from future disaster events. This ensures public safety, lowers long-term recovery costs, and makes essential services like water, transport, and energy more resilient. It also makes the city more attractive to investors, since projects will now be evaluated with risk in mind. On top of that, we're seeing better public spaces, like green corridors and neighborhood upgrades, along with more prepared emergency services and a more aware public,” say UNDP advisors in Dushanbe.
For Petropavl, the project supported the development of the 2026–2040 master plan, while Osh, Ashgabat and Namangan prepared their city-specific disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation action plans through 2030.
In parallel, Kazakhstan’s capital Astana became the first Resilience Hub in Central Asia under the global Making Cities Resilient 2030 campaign, a role that puts it in a network of cities worldwide sharing what works for them.
City Imaginarium (2025), a UNDP Eurasia campaign bringing together artists and citizens to reimagine more sustainable, inclusive and resilient urban futures.
Because no city can solve this alone, the project helped develop a regional platform: the Coalition of Resilient Cities in Central Asia, launched in Dushanbe in 2025 by the five pilot cities. It gives municipalities a standing forum to share lessons and good practices.
It is now planned to expand the Coalition to 14 cities, including all capitals, during the second Regional Urban Resilience Dialogue to be held in Tashkent later this year.
The earthquake resilience project was launched in 2026, based on a similar premise of transboundary cooperation and knowledge exchange. On 29 April 2026, commemorating the International Day in Memory of the Victims of Earthquakes, the disaster management authorities from Central Asian countries convened in Tashkent and signed a joint statement committing to coordinated action on earthquake preparedness and seismic risk reduction in the region.
International Day in Memory of the Victims of Earthquakes in Tashkent.
Since then, our teams have been on the ground in Almaty, Osh, Dushanbe, Ashgabat and Namangan identifying gaps in city-level earthquake management. As initial pilots, earthquake alert systems will be installed in select number of schools, showcasing best practices in earthquake preparedness and risk reduction to be replicated countrywide. This is one example of how better preparedness at the city level can translate into greater safety where people spend their everyday lives.
Much of this work draws on Japan's experience with earthquakes and flash floods, brought through technical exchanges, including a high-level dialogue in Tashkent this August that paired Japanese engineers and geospatial experts with city planners in Uzbekistan.
To the public eye, our work is subtle: there are no rescue stories, just risk profiles, urban plans, coordination mechanisms and training modules. But that’s rather the point.
This year’s IDDRR theme, “Resilience Starts at Home,” reminds us that resilience ultimately comes down to whether people and communities are better prepared when disaster strikes. That preparation may start locally, but it depends on the plans, systems, and institutions around them.
Cities in Central Asia are testing that logic right now. Almaty, Petropavl, Osh, Dushanbe, Ashgabat and Namangan are each starting at a different point. Still, they’re converging on a similar approach: know your risk, build it into urban planning processes, and don’t go at it alone.
Resilience isn’t a project with an end date. It starts at home and expands further — all to keep people safe. It’s a habit institutions must practice.
Namangan, Uzbekistan.
