Public Awareness and Public Education for Disaster Risk Reduction: Key Messages

In 2011, the IFRC published Public awareness and public education for disaster risk reduction: a guide designed to help National Societies scale up their work in disaster risk reduction campaigning, partnerships and education. Alongside this guide, we carried out research on what activities are going on within National Red Cross Red Crescent Societies, and within the wider sector, to harmonize messages for disaster risk reduction.

Harmonized messaging is a key goal in disaster reduction awareness, and is particularly important when it comes to scaling-up efforts to create a culture of safety. To promote consistent actions to the public, we need key safety and resilience messages. Ensuring that these messages have credibility, legitimacy and strong impact, they need to be harmonized and consistent, backed by a consensus of key stakeholders, and based on the best knowledge available at the time.

The revised key messages, in this second edition, are updated to cover additional hazards and have been reviewed for integration of climate change messages, messages regarding pets and livestock and child protection-specific guidance during crises and emergencies. Subject matter experts from partner organizations globally have researched and validated specific messaging for seven additional hazards.

This new edition is a revised, updated and enhanced tool, building on the first edition, for practitioners around the world. IFRC and Save the Children invites Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies, national disaster management organizations, non-governmental organizations and inter-governmental organizations to be part of the continued global validation project, with the objective of adapting and adopting key messages at the national level. To that end, this document provides a well-researched template and starting point.

PAPE messages are available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.

First edition of the PAPE massages can be found here.