**4.4 Retailer network**

Demand is highly uncertain in the humanitarian context. Information concerning the disaster timing and location, available resources, functional infrastructure, type and size of beneficiaries' needs, is always limited, rough, inaccurate, and hysteretic. Prepositioned inventories held or managed by the government or humanitarian organizations may sometimes not satisfy the beneficiaries' demand in type and quantity, or cannot be transported to the disaster sites in time. In case of such failures, the local government and humanitarian organizations with the official background (e.g., the Red Cross) should make the full use of social resources. Requisitioning local retailers' reserves of needed commodities or signing agreements with local convenience or pharmaceutical chain stores to stockpile relief inventories are both honored to ensure the efficiency of disaster relief supply chains. In 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs has published the *Guidance on Strengthening the Construction of Relief Material Reserve System for Natural Disasters* wherein the social reserves are recommended as necessary supplements to the governmental reserves. Most local governments in the high-risk areas of natural disasters have established partnerships of stockpiling relief supplies with private sectors. Supported by its vast retailing network in Sichuan Province, for instance, the distribution centers of Chengdu Hongqi Chain Store were on standby 24/7 to guarantee the supply and allocation of emergency materials during the yearly flood season.

Other than supporting the last-mile delivery of relief supplies, the retailer network is also distributed as the outlet for the public to acquire relief and living commodities, particularly under the quarantine and distancing policy in prevention for the pandemic.

### **4.5 Community education**

Education is the basis of reducing the impact of disasters on human security and sustainable development [16]. In the face of intensifying threats of disasters and crisis, education is no longer a schooling thing, but the whole community should be engaged in continuous learning and practicing in response to disasters. "Community-Based Disaster Risk Management" needs to establish with the linkages of disaster education to the community and household [17].

The strategies towards disaster education and risk reduction differ with the vulnerability of the community [17]. Strengthening the community capacity in terms of the individuals, families and communities is essential in the process of disaster education based on the local context [18], which concentrates on understanding the traditional knowledge, resources and practices of the local communities, and the corresponding skills, support, and structures for disaster preparedness and mitigation [16]. For instance, the social networks of the urban and rural communities are quite different. People live in the pretty intense urban areas usually have poorer communication and interactions with the community, whereas the rural communities have scattered population to connect in the process of disaster education.

Japan is widely acknowledged that has world-class disaster education in school. However, the long commuting distances have changed today's Japanese life style that few individuals and families can afford the time spent on establishing and maintaining relationships with the communities. The disaster education focused on the Japanese communities needs to emphasize the connection between self-help and collaboration with the community and pubic [17]. Community-based approaches to improve the resilience of the community and the people in response to disasters and crisis are also encouraged in the United States. The Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience (LACCDR) Project is structured on four levers: education, engagement, self-sufficiency, and partnership, in which disaster education lays the foundation of the other three levers by building the toolkit for the dissemination of information about preparedness, risks and resources [19].

In some other developing countries like China and India, disaster education at the community level must be addressed with other issues, such as the enhancement of school-based disaster education, the awareness of disaster risks and coping capability of less-educated population, the effective, sustainable and local-based cooperation of community issues and disaster education [17, 20].

Community-based disaster education through the understanding of the social networks in the local context is essential in building the resilience of disaster-prone areas. It should profoundly involve other stakeholders existing within the society, such as governmental agencies, educational institutions, social organizations, community leaders and groups, and policy-making bodies, to push the construction and development of disaster education systems at the community level in a large cooperative effort.
