Background

The Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance is a multi-sectoral partnership focusing on finding practical
ways to help communities in developed and developing countries strengthen their resilience to flood
risk. In this program, Mercy Corps is spearheading the “influence and advocacy” element of the
Alliance to influence government actors to improve national and sub-national policies leading to
improved practice and investment for flood resilience. The Flood Resilience Measurement for
Communities (FRMC) is an approach that seeks to improve the capacity of communities; to prepare,
respond, and recover from floods and climate-related hazards on people and businesses.

The implementation of FRMC provides recommendations to local/sub-national governments through
advocacy and influence. Implementing the tool in these communities will strengthen the evidence
base for our advocacy efforts with the disaster management structure to justify increased government
budget expenditure and investment in improved policies and practice for disaster risk management
activities. To more directly tie the FRMC to our budget advocacy efforts and raise the profile of the
approach with different audiences, we will include questions during interviews with key stakeholders
on budget gaps in DRR/CCA. Utilizing the tool for this specific advocacy purposes will not only
support local and regional advocacy efforts but can be used as an example at the global level of how
the FRMC can contribute to efforts to increase financing at local levels. In addition, the FRMC tool
will enable the communities to utilize technology-based data collection to measure and assess flood
resilience.

Project Goal, Purposes and Outcomes
The goal of the program is that floods have no negative impact on people and businesses' ability to
thrive. To achieve the expected goal, ZFRA program has three objectives:
1. Increase funding for flood resilience
2. Improve policy at global, national or sub-national level and
3. Improve flood resilience practice.