The National Risk and Resilience Directorate leads efforts to strengthen New Zealand’s resilience to the most significant hazards and national security threats we face.
Through the National Risk and Resilience Framework, the directorate drives informed, proactive, and impactful prioritisation of resourcing and investment to ensure we can endure, adapt, and thrive in the face of significant shocks and stressors.
The directorate provides strategic leadership and policy advice across the National Resilience System, ensuring a cohesive and evidence-based approach to managing National Risks. These are the most significant potential crises facing New Zealand – hazards and national security threats with serious immediate and/or long-term effects on the country’s safety, security, and prosperity. The directorate works to identify, assess, and monitor these risks, while also developing and implementing strategies to reduce their impact and build resilience.
Key activities of the National Risk and Resilience Directorate include:
- Set strategic direction and priorities for national risk management and resilience-building.
- Leading cross-government efforts to identify, assess, cost, and monitor National Risks and the effectiveness of interventions to manage them.
- Driving whole-of-government resilience policy work, including strategic coordination and integration of resilience-building initiatives.
- Providing insights, advice, and assurance reporting to decision-makers to support proactive risk management.
- Supporting public awareness and resilience through targeted messaging and engagement.
- Stewarding institutional frameworks and governance arrangements to ensure the national resilience system operates effectively.
- Building feedback loops between crisis response, recovery, and resilience policy to help New Zealand adapt and emerge stronger from crises.
Through these efforts, the National Risk and Resilience Directorate ensures that New Zealand is better prepared to face serious hazards and threats, fostering a safer, more secure, and prosperous nation.
You can read more about the National Risk and Resilience Framework and about New Zealand’s National Risks on the New Zealand’s National Risk Register.