New mayor, new plan San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima

Interview with Veladio Erazo Masgo, Deputy Manager of Disaster Risk at the municipality of San Juan de Lurigancho

Question: What are the greatest challenges facing your city?

The biggest challenge that we face is the local authority engagement and increasing the knowledge of the importance of disaster risk reduction. Another challenge is how to share DRR good practice and action plans with local communities. Our plan takes into account national regulations but we want the cross level engagement to work before we start on implementation.

The new Mayor needs to be aware of what disaster risk reduction means. Just after he arrived, there was a waste water flood that helped him to understand what was needed. Before that happened, the previous authorites had downsized our unit. Then they realized the need for it. Its a challenge of instability and lack of institutionalization.

Question: What stage are you in the process?

The old plan had been completed butnew Mayor means a new plan which will need to be distributed, discussed, considered, endorsed and budgeted.

Question: What are the biggest advantages that you have seen from the Making Cities Resilient Initiative?

The biggest advantage is definitely to have a tool that guides urban growth. We have had 40 years of unplanned urban growth. Our new action plan will help as an entry point to improve things in this regard.

Question: What next for your city?

First of all we need to have a meeting with the working group and the local authorities. We will also include the Platform for Civil Defense and all different stakeholders from different sectors such as health, education, policy and the private sector. We will take the current plan and work on it. 

Then we will engage in implementation of the plan so that DRR is mainstreamed into the activities in the city.

San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, is one of 20 cities taking part in the Making Cities Sustainable and Resilient project, funded by the European Commission and jointly led by UNDRR to support municipalities to develop and implement disaster risk reduction action plans.