ISO 22393:2023 PDF

Overview - ISO 22393:2023 (Community resilience: Recovery and renewal)

ISO 22393:2023 provides practical guidance for planning and governing both short-term recovery and longer-term renewal after major emergencies, disasters or crises. It explains how to move from transactional recovery activities (restarting services, reinstating operations, learning lessons) to transformational renewal initiatives (systemic change that addresses inequalities and builds future resilience). The standard applies to all organizations involved in community recovery and human welfare - especially public bodies, voluntary and community organisations, and social enterprises.

Key technical topics and requirements

ISO 22393:2023 is structured to support evidence-based, coordinated recovery and renewal planning. Key topics and guidance include:

• Concepts and scope

  • Differentiates recovery (short-term, transactional) from renewal (longer-term, transformational).
  • Emphasizes “build forward fairer” - addressing inequities exposed by crises.

• Governance and coordination

  • Guidance on setting up a Recovery Coordination Group (RCG): membership, terms of reference, objectives, resource access and stakeholder communication.

• Impact and need assessment

  • How to assess crisis impacts and community needs, including impact themes, data collection, analysis and presenting results.
  • Methods for calculating net economic loss and selecting priority action areas.

• Planning activities and initiatives

  • Identifying and managing transactional recovery activities (people, places, processes).
  • Organising and designing transformational renewal initiatives, and addressing challenges to delivery.

• Cross-cutting domains

  • Guidance to identify scalable activity across people, places, processes, power and partners.

• Continuous improvement

  • Capturing lessons, acting on them, and using scenario planning and exercises to improve preparedness.

Practical applications - who uses this standard

ISO 22393 is designed for:

• Emergency managers, municipal and regional planners
• Public health and social welfare agencies
• NGOs, voluntary and community sectors, social enterprises
• Recovery coordination bodies and resilience partners
• Policy-makers and funders designing programmes for post-crisis renewal

Practical uses include: forming RCGs, commissioning impact and need assessments, prioritising recovery tasks, designing community-led renewal programmes, and embedding lessons for future crises.

Related standards and context

• ISO 22393:2023 is the first edition (published Feb 2023) and replaces ISO/TS 22393:2021.
• It sits within ISO’s security and resilience work (prepared by ISO/TC 292) and complements other community resilience and emergency management guidance.

Keywords: ISO 22393:2023, community resilience, recovery planning, renewal initiatives, Recovery Coordination Group, impact and need assessment, build forward fairer.