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Resilience Council
22 July 2026 | Published | Minutes
Summary record of the sixth session of the Resilience Council
Chair: Gregorio Yap, Chair, Resilience Council, Tacloban, Philippines
Attendance: 97 members from 40 countries. The session was conducted in two Open Table sittings: Asia-Pacific at 06:00 UTC and Europe/Africa/Americas at 16:00 UTC.
Agenda: (a) progress on evidence for RS-001, the Reopen Standard; (b) review of the three proposed measures; (c) evidence gaps and the five-part pattern test; (d) member follow-up and next steps.
Proceedings
The sixth session of the Resilience Council was held on 22 July 2026 in two sittings, at 06:00 UTC for Asia-Pacific and at 16:00 UTC for Europe, Africa and the Americas. Gregorio Yap chaired both sittings. This summary consolidates their proceedings and records the council’s work as of the date of the meeting.
The chair opened by recalling that RS-001 concerns the ability of micro and small businesses to resume operations after a disaster. The proposed Reopen Standard contains three requests: insurance claims should be decided within 30 days; bridge funding should be made available within 10 days of a declared disaster; and continuity-planning support should be accessible to micro businesses. The chair emphasized that these remain proposals under review, not adopted requirements.
The chair stated that the council’s task was to assess whether the reported problem displayed the five elements of the Assembly’s pattern test: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration. The council had not completed that test. The record available at the session included 94 resilience reports from 36 countries. The median amount at stake was approximately US$5,000. The council had 97 members from 40 countries. Members were reminded that these figures describe the council’s evidence and membership, not the prevalence of disaster-related hardship among all businesses.
Gregorio Yap reported that the submission received on 20 July, RC/RS/2026/S.3, had been added to the evidence file. He asked members to distinguish direct accounts of a disruption from information establishing when a claim was filed, when a decision was made, when funds became available and when the business reopened. He said that a report could be useful even where a member lacked documents, provided that the limits of the evidence were recorded clearly.
Maria Santos of Tacloban, Philippines, described the value of recording the sequence of events after a storm: interruption of trading, contact with an insurer or public agency, the response received, access to funds and the date operations resumed. She considered that a simple chronology would help members compare experiences without implying that every delay had the same cause. She recommended that the evidence form ask separately about a decision on a claim and receipt of payment.
Aiko Tanaka of Sendai, Japan, drew attention to the difference between a continuity plan on paper and assistance that a small operator can put into practice. She said evidence should identify whether guidance was available before a disaster, whether it could be understood without specialist support and whether the owner could use it while trading was interrupted. She cautioned that a business’s preparation should not be treated as proof that it could recover without external assistance.
Nimal Perera of Colombo, Sri Lanka, asked the council to examine the proposed 10-day period for bridge funding as a distinct measure. He said reports should show the date of a formal disaster declaration, where one exists, and the date on which funds were requested and received. He also noted that a member might face urgent costs before a decision on a longer-term insurance claim. The chair recorded this as a reason to keep bridge funding analytically separate from claims settlement.
Thandiwe Mokoena of Durban, South Africa, urged the council to avoid a single measure of recovery. She said that reopening a premises does not necessarily mean that customers have returned, suppliers are available or income has resumed. She recommended that future evidence collection distinguish physical reopening from the restoration of sales and ordinary operating capacity. The council agreed that these distinctions could be recorded as context without expanding the three requests at this stage.
Carlos Méndez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, raised the risk that a standard focused only on documented insurance claims could omit businesses that are uninsured, underinsured or unable to complete a claim. He asked that the evidence form retain a way to report the absence of coverage or an unsuccessful attempt to obtain assistance. He did not propose treating an absence of insurance as evidence that a claim had been delayed; rather, he asked that those experiences be categorized accurately.
Fatima Rahman of Dhaka, Bangladesh, supported collecting evidence from businesses with different team sizes. She said that a sole operator may have no colleague available to manage paperwork or maintain communications during an emergency. She asked the council to retain the existing team-size categories and to record whether the owner had support to prepare or submit an application. The chair noted that the council’s July data showed a range of team sizes, including sole operators and businesses with between two and nine workers.
Eleni Papadopoulos of Athens, Greece, recommended that the council test whether the same sequence of difficulties appeared across different places and kinds of disasters. She said that accounts from multiple countries were important to the Spread element, but that country coverage alone would not establish that the underlying practice was consistent. Members should describe the relevant process and outcome without identifying a company in an allegation.
In the second sitting, members considered the evidence needed to support the proposed time periods. Several participants emphasized the importance of recording dates and the nature of any decision, while also protecting members who could not safely or practically retain documents. The chair summarized the discussion as a need for proportionate corroboration: documents could strengthen a report, but an account should not be discarded solely because a member could not provide a formal record. No threshold for accepting or rejecting individual reports was adopted.
The council considered the available external context. Members noted the UNDRR account that small and medium-sized enterprises bear a substantial share of business disaster losses and that disaster risk reduction can reduce losses. The chair also referred to the Japan survey reported through UNDRR, in which the share of prepared small and medium-sized enterprises that had not recovered sales was lower than the share among unprepared enterprises. These findings were treated as context for resilience and preparedness, not as proof of the specific claims-decision or bridge-funding periods proposed in RS-001.12
Members recalled that business continuity is also addressed in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, including paragraphs 30(o) and 36(c), with particular relevance to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The council agreed that this reference supported the importance of continuity planning but did not establish that any particular institution had failed to provide it in an individual case.
On the five-part pattern test, the chair summarized the discussion as follows. Volume was supported by the number of reports currently in the resilience file, subject to the limits of a voluntary reporting system. Frequency required clearer timelines and evidence of repeated occurrences. Consistency required comparable descriptions of the practices and outcomes at issue. Spread was informed by reports from multiple countries but required careful comparison rather than a country count alone. Corroboration remained pending. The council therefore did not declare the pattern test complete and did not authorize the drafting of an adoption-ready standard.
Members agreed that the existing proposals should remain together under RS-001 for the current evidence-gathering stage, while evidence collection should distinguish claims decisions, bridge funding and continuity-planning support. This was a procedural decision about organization of the evidence. It did not settle the final wording, establish binding deadlines or imply that every insurer, public agency or other provider was subject to the proposed measures.
The chair recorded that the council would continue to seek corroboration, including dated records where available, descriptions of the steps taken to request assistance, and accounts of the effect of delay on reopening. Members were asked not to name their own businesses in public submissions and not to identify a company in an accusation. Reports should describe the relevant provider by category, such as an insurer, public agency or payment provider, unless a formal process expressly required otherwise.
The chair also noted that the council’s earlier work included the continuity checklist in RC/RS/2026/20, the contribution offered to UNDRR in RC/RS/2026/21 and the letter to national disaster agencies in the Philippines and Indonesia in RC/RS/2026/22. These documents were noted as related activity; the session made no finding about whether any recipient had responded or acted on them.
Decisions and action items
Decision: The council will continue evidence gathering for RS-001. The five-part pattern test remains incomplete, with corroboration pending. The three proposed measures remain under consideration and are not adopted standards.
Evidence form — Gregorio Yap and the Resilience Council secretariat: Prepare a revised evidence prompt separating the date a claim was filed, the date it was decided and the date payment was received; the date bridge funding was requested and received; and the availability and practical use of continuity-planning support. Include fields for business team size and the stage of recovery described.
Member submissions — all council members: Where safely available, provide dated records or a clear chronology supporting reported events. Members unable to provide documents may still submit an account, with that limitation noted. Reports should distinguish a claim delay from lack of coverage, an unsuccessful application or a different form of assistance.
Comparability review — council members contributing evidence: Identify which practice and outcome each report concerns, and avoid treating different disasters, processes or recovery measures as interchangeable. The review should assess whether reported patterns recur across places and circumstances.
Corroboration review — Gregorio Yap: Maintain the evidence register and identify what additional support would be useful before the council could complete the Corroboration element. No numeric threshold was set at this session.
Next session: The seventh monthly Open Table session was scheduled for 22 August 2026, with sittings at 06:00 UTC for Asia-Pacific and 16:00 UTC for Europe, Africa and the Americas. The council would review progress on the evidence prompts and any additional corroboration received.
The chair closed the session by thanking members for their contributions and reiterating that the council’s immediate work was to establish a careful, comparable evidence base. Any draft standard would require completion of the pattern review and the subsequent consultation and Assembly processes.
Sources
This document has no standing until adopted under the Founders Charter. Reseated Councils is not affiliated with the United Nations.