In recent years, the southern Africa region has been assaulted by climatic events that have not only happened more frequently, but have also increased their negative impacts on the less favored populations, thus revealing the weak preparation and limited intervention capacity of regional Governments and authorities to manage natural disasters, in advance.

DiMSUR believes that urban resilience can only be achieved by changing the behavior of the inhabitants of a region. This change involves raising the awareness of communities, Governments and all actors in the urban environment so that they can understand the importance of, in the long term, changing the discourse of reconstruction to the principles of prevention. Governments must begin to plan cities in an integrated and inclusive way, starting to design them “with the populations” and no longer “doing it for them”.

Searching for real solutions to the problems of a region can only be a successful strategy if the populations that inhabit it are included in this search. The climatic, economic, social, anthropological and cultural findings of a given region can only be raised and changed, if the communities that inhabit it play a relevant role in its transformation, with that said, the time has come to change the paradigm of southern Africa. It has already become clear that it is necessary to act quickly and in favor of effective and lasting changes, starting with people’s behavior until the change of legislation that will allow the construction of more resilient cities. For this reason, all necessary efforts will be carried out for an African center of excellence to be part of the change that is to be seen in the region.