Resilient territories in Latin America and the Caribbean where resilience is considered a key element to overcoming natural disasters or social problems, transforming a threat into an opportunity. The construction of resilient territories and communities leads to cultural changes, including the empowerment of leaders, women and minorities residing in the city, stimulating the relationships between coexistence, security, and conservation of ecosystems.
For some, resilience drives a regional dynamic that breaks the center-periphery scheme. It offers equal opportunities to urban and rural territories, in a need to articulate both spaces through a systemic approach. For others, the articulation would not necessarily be delimited by the geographical unity, but to seek the balance and harmonious coexistence between human activities and ecosystems so that none of these dimensions become threats or dangers for the other.
In any case, development takes place in the territories, and it is in these spaces that the risks, disasters and decisions that occur in different spheres and entities of power are concretized, at a regional, national, international and global level.
Simultaneously, the management of territories’ development can not ignore or exclude in its planning the risks of disasters – whether those caused by human actions or by natural phenomena. Actions to reduce risks or the impact of potentially threatening phenomena can not be carried out separately from development activities if they are to achieve sustainable.
The natural sciences, social sciences and culture can contribute on different levels to generate greater qualities of territorial and community resilience, thus helping to promote a truly sustainable form of local social, economic, environment, and cultural development. Local particularities, within the framework of greater Latin American heterogeneity, deserve to approach the problem with a vision adapted to the realities and local environments of the region, for which it is necessary to design instruments, tools, and endogenous capacities that allow the implementation of strategic partnerships for the development of sustainable, resilient, and less vulnerable communities and territories.