This Guide aims to help empower museums (small, large and of any kind, anywhere), museum workers, museum networks and their partners to draw on Disaster Risk Reduction approaches. This should help them reduce the impact of disasters, whether COVID-19, climate change, or any other kind of disaster, for the benefit of themselves, their communities, and the natural environment.
The Guide has two main goals:
- To help museums build their resilience, and reduce the impact of disasters on museums themselves.
- To help museums contribute to resilience building in the wider world, for the benefit of society and the natural environment.
Many museums already consider disaster risk in terms of protecting their own buildings and collections. This Guide takes a broader perspective, that museums can play a key role in supporting people, communities, the whole of society and nature, to prevent or mitigate disasters in the wider world. Making a difference in the world is, arguably, the best way for museums to be resilient as organizations.