Embedding Resilience into Governance Frameworks: The City of Gold Coast Disaster Resilience Scorecard
Tracks
Gold Coast Ballroom
| Monday, July 27, 2026 |
| 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM |
| Gold Coast Room |
Overview
Liesel Rennie & Mark Ryan, City Of Gold Coast
Details
Three Key Learnings
1. Benchmarking for action: The Disaster Resilience Scorecard provides an evidence-based benchmark of current resilience, identifying strengths and critical focus areas to guide targeted uplift and increased resilience.
2. Tracking and monitoring: A city-wide DRR framework to monitor resilience ensures shared understanding and accountability, continuous improvement, and a proactive shift from response to long-term City resilience.
3. Strategic action: Understanding current resilience impacts and integrating Scorecard insights into planning and investment, ensures resources and projects strengthen resilience, reduce risk, and protect people and assets for a safer, more adaptable City.
Speaker
Mrs Liesel Rennie
Disaster Resilience Lead
City Of Gold Coast
Embedding resilience into governance frameworks: The City of Gold Coast Disaster Resilience Scorecard
Abstract
The City of Gold Coast has undertaken a transformative governance initiative to benchmark and uplift disaster resilience using the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Scorecard. This project responds to the growing complexity of multi-hazard risks faced by the City, including cyclones, storms, floods, bushfires, and heatwaves, by embedding resilience into governance, planning, and operations.
Phase 1 delivered a defensible preliminary City Resilience score through an evidence-based assessment process, informed by multi-stakeholder workshops. Ten Essential Leaders have been appointed to sponsor resilience across portfolios and establish a governance model aligned with the Sendai Framework and Paris Agreement.
Evidence indicates the City has strong disaster response readiness, supported by robust planning, surge capacity, strong flood intelligence, protective infrastructure, community engagement, and conservation initiatives complemented by resilient design guidance. The 2025 assessment identified priority focus areas where uplift in disaster risk reduction activities will enhance resilience levels including improving and coordinated and integrated governance structures.
The City has committed to support priority focus areas to uplift resilience including creating a single source of truth for disaster plans and risk layers, embedding climate and multi-hazard considerations into statutory planning and asset management, formalising critical infrastructure registers and resilience tiers, enhancing essential assets like evacuation centres, advancing inclusive communication and training, and establishing a lessons-learned and recovery hub to strengthen governance and funding opportunities.
The Scorecard supports a governance-led approach to enhancing the City’s disaster resilience, demonstrating how aligning political realities, funding priorities, and operational needs under a structured resilience framework drives systemic change. By leveraging international standards and fostering collaborative executive sponsorship, the City is transitioning from fragmented reactive practices to a proactive, evidence-based, whole-of-system model that strengthens disaster risk reduction and community resilience.
Phase 1 delivered a defensible preliminary City Resilience score through an evidence-based assessment process, informed by multi-stakeholder workshops. Ten Essential Leaders have been appointed to sponsor resilience across portfolios and establish a governance model aligned with the Sendai Framework and Paris Agreement.
Evidence indicates the City has strong disaster response readiness, supported by robust planning, surge capacity, strong flood intelligence, protective infrastructure, community engagement, and conservation initiatives complemented by resilient design guidance. The 2025 assessment identified priority focus areas where uplift in disaster risk reduction activities will enhance resilience levels including improving and coordinated and integrated governance structures.
The City has committed to support priority focus areas to uplift resilience including creating a single source of truth for disaster plans and risk layers, embedding climate and multi-hazard considerations into statutory planning and asset management, formalising critical infrastructure registers and resilience tiers, enhancing essential assets like evacuation centres, advancing inclusive communication and training, and establishing a lessons-learned and recovery hub to strengthen governance and funding opportunities.
The Scorecard supports a governance-led approach to enhancing the City’s disaster resilience, demonstrating how aligning political realities, funding priorities, and operational needs under a structured resilience framework drives systemic change. By leveraging international standards and fostering collaborative executive sponsorship, the City is transitioning from fragmented reactive practices to a proactive, evidence-based, whole-of-system model that strengthens disaster risk reduction and community resilience.
Biography
Liesel Rennie is a Disaster Resilience Lead at the City of Gold Coast’s Disaster and Emergency Management Unit. She leads the Disaster Resilience Scorecard Project, embedding the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction framework into governance, planning, and operational decision making across the City. This initiative established the City’s 2025 resilience score and an evidence-based approach to track uplift. Liesel specialises in monitoring and evaluation, stakeholder engagement, and translating complex findings into actionable insights. Her current focus is on building a proactive, whole-of-city approach to disaster resilience.
Mark Ryan
General Manager, Disaster and Emergency Management | Local Disaster Coordinator
City of Gold Coast
Embedding resilience into governance frameworks: The City of Gold Coast Disaster Resilience Scorecard
Abstract
The City of Gold Coast has undertaken a transformative governance initiative to benchmark and uplift disaster resilience using the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Scorecard. This project responds to the growing complexity of multi-hazard risks faced by the City, including cyclones, storms, floods, bushfires, and heatwaves, by embedding resilience into governance, planning, and operations.
Phase 1 delivered a defensible preliminary City Resilience score through an evidence-based assessment process, informed by multi-stakeholder workshops. Ten Essential Leaders have been appointed to sponsor resilience across portfolios and establish a governance model aligned with the Sendai Framework and Paris Agreement.
Evidence indicates the City has strong disaster response readiness, supported by robust planning, surge capacity, strong flood intelligence, protective infrastructure, community engagement, and conservation initiatives complemented by resilient design guidance. The 2025 assessment identified priority focus areas where uplift in disaster risk reduction activities will enhance resilience levels including improving and coordinated and integrated governance structures.
The City has committed to support priority focus areas to uplift resilience including creating a single source of truth for disaster plans and risk layers, embedding climate and multi-hazard considerations into statutory planning and asset management, formalising critical infrastructure registers and resilience tiers, enhancing essential assets like evacuation centres, advancing inclusive communication and training, and establishing a lessons-learned and recovery hub to strengthen governance and funding opportunities.
The Scorecard supports a governance-led approach to enhancing the City’s disaster resilience, demonstrating how aligning political realities, funding priorities, and operational needs under a structured resilience framework drives systemic change. By leveraging international standards and fostering collaborative executive sponsorship, the City is transitioning from fragmented reactive practices to a proactive, evidence-based, whole-of-system model that strengthens disaster risk reduction and community resilience.
Phase 1 delivered a defensible preliminary City Resilience score through an evidence-based assessment process, informed by multi-stakeholder workshops. Ten Essential Leaders have been appointed to sponsor resilience across portfolios and establish a governance model aligned with the Sendai Framework and Paris Agreement.
Evidence indicates the City has strong disaster response readiness, supported by robust planning, surge capacity, strong flood intelligence, protective infrastructure, community engagement, and conservation initiatives complemented by resilient design guidance. The 2025 assessment identified priority focus areas where uplift in disaster risk reduction activities will enhance resilience levels including improving and coordinated and integrated governance structures.
The City has committed to support priority focus areas to uplift resilience including creating a single source of truth for disaster plans and risk layers, embedding climate and multi-hazard considerations into statutory planning and asset management, formalising critical infrastructure registers and resilience tiers, enhancing essential assets like evacuation centres, advancing inclusive communication and training, and establishing a lessons-learned and recovery hub to strengthen governance and funding opportunities.
The Scorecard supports a governance-led approach to enhancing the City’s disaster resilience, demonstrating how aligning political realities, funding priorities, and operational needs under a structured resilience framework drives systemic change. By leveraging international standards and fostering collaborative executive sponsorship, the City is transitioning from fragmented reactive practices to a proactive, evidence-based, whole-of-system model that strengthens disaster risk reduction and community resilience.
Biography
Mark Ryan is the General Manager of Disaster and Emergency Management and Local Disaster Coordinator for the City of Gold Coast.
With senior and executive operational roles across fire and emergency services and disaster management in four states and territories, he has led major responses including the 2014 Brisbane hailstorms, the SES component of the G20 Leaders meeting in Brisbane, the 2023 Christmas Day Gold Coast storm, and most recently Tropical Cyclone Alfred in 2025.
Mark is a strong advocate for building community and infrastructure resilience to reduce the impacts of increasingly complex disasters, with his other passion being having a ready community that understands public information and warnings before, during and after disasters and Emergencies. He has received the National Medal, National Emergency Medal and several other honors for his service.
