There is significant evidence of the growth of natural disasters on a global level. The Asia-Pacific region continues to be the world's most disaster prone region; it has many low-/middle-income countries and accounted for 47% of the world's 344 disasters in 2015 with 16,046 fatalities and reported economic damage in the region of US$ 5.1 Billion. In this context, the most disaster-prone sub-region is South Asia, recording 52 disasters and 14,647 deaths, representing 64% of the global fatalities, in 2015. Scientific research has shown that disaster risks do not only exist because of the presence of a physical hazard; they are compounded by the presence of vulnerability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to shift our focus from pure emergency response and recovery towards a sustainable disaster mitigation framework that focuses on building resilience within a disaster prone area, involving government agencies and the local community to reduce the impact of a hazard. However, at present there is a lack of tools and methods available to agencies to enable them to come together to understand the underlying vulnerabilities of a disaster prone area and build resilience to reduce disaster impact on a community. Digital technology has the potential for creating a collaboration environment for various agencies and communities to act collectively to reduce the impact of disasters. The goal of this project is to develop a Collaborative Multi-agency Platform that can be used for building resilient communities in disaster prone areas in low-/middle-income countries. The project will focus on the challenges faced by three countries: Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These countries are frequently affected by a multitude of natural hazards including floods, landslides, cyclones, droughts, and earthquakes and have therefore been chosen as the focus for this research to capture broader set of disaster conditions and requirements common to low-/middle-income countries. The project aims to address the following research questions: What is the nature of a resilience framework that will allow low-/middle-income countries to assess their vulnerabilities and resilience capabilities and take measures to build resilient communities? How can we enhance multi-agency collaboration within low-/middle-income countries? What changes are required in terms of technology, organizational structures and collaboration processes to enhance multi-agency collaboration? What are the characteristics of a collaboration platform that can support collective vulnerability assessment and reduction by multi-agencies? How can we establish a system dynamic model that can support the simulation of cascading effect on critical infrastructure systems due to a hazard? How can we construct a collaborative 3D environment based on near real-time 3D satellite data and analysis for supporting early response and damage assessment after a major disaster? In addressing itself to these questions, the project will lead to development of an advanced digital platform that can be used in low-/middle-income countries to strengthen their resilience capacities for disaster. The project team is comprised of University of Salford (THINKlab & Centre for Disaster Resilience), the Universities of Moratuwa & Colombo (Sri Lanka), Tun Hussein Onn University (Malaysia) and the University of Peshawar (Pakistan). This team will be supported by a broad set of project partners, including industry and government agencies who are playing a key role in disaster resilience city agenda in UK, including: the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat, the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum, Rockefeller Foundation, Environment Agency, the Satellite Applications Catapult, Telespazio Vega Ltd and Secure Information Assurance Ltd. Similarly, in each partner country we have established industry and government agency stakeholder groups to engage and steer the project to achieve a greater impact.

During the last decade, many initiatives have been undertaken to make progress in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and response. However the progress in disaster risk reduction has been limited by the failure to acknowledge and address the development processes as the root causes of disasters. Previous initiatives have concentrated on reducing existing risks, rather than on how risks are generated and accumulated in the first place through development projects that are taking place as a part of the reconstruction phase after a disaster or in response to the demand of urban sprawl. Furthermore, work on resilience has attracted criticism for its failure to involve vulnerable communities and address the issue of equity and power. As a result, the Sustainable Development Goals which call for "reduced inequalities", "inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities" and "partnerships for goals" and the Sendai Priority 4 that calls for build-back better in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction, are hard to achieve due to a lack of research knowledge, current practices and policies. One of the explanations for increasing risks is that the development and disaster risk reduction decision-making processes occur in silos, conducted by different agencies, institutions and other actors with differing priorities, perspectives and time horizons. Therefore, there is an urgent need to transform current development practices that increase or create risks, as well as unfairly distributing risks to vulnerable communities, to a new form of development practice that is equitable and resilient. This project consortium believe such a transformation can be achieved by enabling cross-organisational collaboration, openness, adaptability, learning, impartiality, power sharing and public participation. The project aims to investigate processes, governance structures, policies and technology that can enable a transition towards a more risk-sensitive and transformative urban development approach. More specifically, the project aims to investigate the nature of a sociotechnical system, enabled by a collaborative foresight and consensus building virtual workspace, which can promote collaborative governance approach across relevant organisations and support the transparent and democratic involvement of all the relevant stakeholders (including experts from local authorities, disaster management authorities, developers, poor and vulnerable communities, and humanitarian organisations) to analyse, forecast, visualize and debate disaster-risk trade-offs and to choose development plans that ensure sustainability and equitable resilience, giving considerations to climate change adaptation. The key research questions that the project is aiming to address are: What type of formal and informal collaborative partnerships need to be established to alleviate long-standing tensions between development and DRR and progress towards more risk-sensitive and transformative urban development? What changes are required within the current urban planning process to facilitate risk-sensitive urban development, giving consideration to natural disasters and their impact on the environment, economy and vulnerable communities? What are the type of narratives that need to be developed, presented and discussed to establish a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the proposed developments on the community, economy and environment ? What are the vulnerabilities that need to be considered within the local context? How can we make participatory planning more accessible to a range of communities? Three countries (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia) from the Asia-Pacific region have been selected for this research since the Asia-Pacific region continues to be the world's most disaster prone region. These countries are frequently affected by a multitude of natural hazards including floods, landslides, cyclones and droughts.