Abstract:

The concept of interaction, which has found more space in international relations with globalization, has also expanded the field of action of local governments. Sister city relations are among the international collaborations of local governments representing cities, regions and states. Managers of Washington-Hyogo, California-Osaka and Hawaii-Hiroshima sister cities in the USA and Japan and managers various regional non-governmental organizations made some recommendations at the end of the three-day conference process where lessons learned and best practices on planning, preparation and response to natural disasters were shared. Taking these recommendations into consideration, sister city relations were considered as a disaster management model in the context of local governments at national level. In the model, city pairings were made by taking into consideration factors such as fault line, population, cities not being close to each other, geographical location, etc. The main purpose of these pairings is to prevent managerial uncertainty and other weaknesses that may arise in the event of a possible disaster and to take action quickly. With the sister city disaster management model, it is thought that sharing the knowledge and experiences of sister cities regarding past disasters among themselves will provide significant contributions to the cities.

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