On September 10, 2018, the World Bank Tokyo Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Hub welcomed 20 executives from Airbus visiting Japan as part of their management training program to spark innovative thinking on resilience and knowledge-based economy. This training program, named Expand, is organized by the French Agency Les Rois Mages (LRM), and is focusing in 2018 on the thematic area of “Resilience and Knowledge-Based Economy.” In this context, LRM, responsible for facilitating knowledge exchanges in Japan, reached out to the Tokyo DRM Hub to exchange its knowledge and expertise on resilience in Japan, particularly on the topic of Resilient Industry.
After an introduction of the Japan-World Bank Program on Mainstreaming DRM in Developing Countries and the Resilient Industry knowledge program, Shoko Takemoto, World Bank DRM Specialist, and Junji Yokokura, Senior Chief Engineer from Yachiyo Engineering Company, shared preliminary findings from the joint effort between the World Bank’s Finance Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice and the Tokyo DRM Hub to develop a global framework for Resilient Industries based on lessons learned from continuing operation, minimizing disruptions, and enhancing competitiveness in face of various disasters faced in Japan and globally.
Takemoto highlighted: “As seen from the recent typhoon in Kansai region, to the earthquakes in Hokkaido, Japan is constantly reminded of the significant impacts of natural disasters – not only to people that are directly affected, but also to the livelihoods of those living in a much wider area. Disasters’ direct and indirect impacts threaten the continuity and competitiveness of firms, industries, national economy and global value chains. While efforts to strengthen disaster resilience of industries are still a work in progress, some ideas and solutions are being trialed and advanced around the world, including in Japan. Therefore, through our program, we are trying to capture and share these solutions with countries that we support through World Bank operations.”
Participants representing various departments across the global Airbus operations gauged in active discussions, to further explore and understand what resilience means for industries, and what may be the unique characteristics of Japan when it comes to industrial resilience – from technology, tools, policy, and systems, to a more underlying context of history, culture and religion. A participant reflected that: “It would be very interesting for the global community to understand how Japanese firms are able to “cooperate” to prepare for and respond to disaster while maintaining competitiveness. While the “culture of resilience” may be a unique feature to Japan that is playing a significant role, the evidence-based research that analyzes the solutions to strengthen disaster risk resilience in Japan and globally is extremely interesting.”
The Industry Resilience Framework and Case Studies are expected to be available early in 2019.