Recent years have witnessed a drastic increase in the number of extreme events and disasters globally, which has had a cascading effect on lives, livelihoods and ecosystems around the world. The Multi Hazard Early Warning Conferences 2022, organized by a diverse group of partners including European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC), the International Network for Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (IN-MHEWS), (UNDRR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), tUNESCO, WMO, WHO etc to name a few has shed light on the challenges and limitations of the existing MHEWS and has called for the need of effective integration of research, policy, good governance, community engagement and decision making bodies to adapt to the changing landscape with respect to early warning. In order to strengthen the collaboration across a multitude of stakeholders and effectively disseminate MHEWS at community level, there is a need to devise an ecosystem that addresses the gap between the development, adoption and implementation of systems by utilizing an approach rooted in social practices, global, local and indigenous knowledge systems.

The International symposium Multi-hazards Warning & Community Resilience (MWCR 2022) aims at showcasing the efforts made by various state and national disaster management authorities from India and the neighboring countries, and disaster researchers, and UN experts working in the domain of Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS), associated policies, processes, challenges, and improvements planned. Through this impetus we hope to bridge the gap between academicians, weather experts, geospatial analysts, computer scientists, wireless networks and communication specialists, disaster scholars and the lay persons/ communities at large, in working on raising awareness to risks and improving warning dissemination to the general population.

Additionally, we hope that this symposium will pave the way for a larger conference planned early next year by the UNESCO Chair on Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation and Development. We envisage the formation of a coalition of experts from the global north and south that include governmental, nongovernmental, private and community members that can work together in building community capacity and resilience amongst the general population and special needs groups, including, people with disabilities (physical, vision, hearing impaired), minority communities and the elderly alike around the world. Collectively, we can build disaster-resilient communities around the world by enhancing access to real-time hazard knowledge by designing, developing and deploying interventions, tools, and techniques to ensure more people receive timely warnings and lives are saved.