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ISO has published new guidelines on conducting peer reviews

ISO 22392, Security and resilience – Community resilience – Guidelines for conducting peer reviews has recently been published.

A peer review to enhance community resilience is an opportunity for a host country, region, city or community to engage in a constructive process to reflect on its activities with a team of independent professionals. It encourages conversations, promotes the exchange of good practice, and examines the performance of the entity being reviewed to further develop their practices. It can enhance preparedness for an incident and support learning from other emergencies and exercises. Unlike an audit, a peer review is optional, and the organization can design it according to its needs.

This new standard has already been used in Argentina, Chile, and the UK as guidance for peer reviews related to community resilience policy and practices. It is aimed at organizations who are responsible for managing activities such as: policy and preparedness, response and recovery operations, and designing preventative measures. It is applicable to organizations and agencies such as local, regional and national governments; statutory bodies; non-governmental organizations; businesses; and public and community groups.

Key Features 

The project leader and convenor of WG5, Duncan Shaw of University of Manchester (UK), explains that this new standard provides Duncan Shawpractical recommendations and guidance on how to initiate, conduct and learn from a peer review to enhance community resilience. He notes that the peer review process outlined in the standard can be applied to enhance a range of community resilience activities, including Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and supports the aims of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–-2030. 

This new standard is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide. It also contains several informative annexes which organizations can use as a tool kit when planning and conducting a peer review process. These annexes include: 

  • table of tasks to be conducted before, during and after a visit; 
  • examples of subject areas that can be analyzed (policy and operational);
  • sample evidence reporting template, and  
  • sample timetable. 

ISO 22392:2020, Security and Resilience — Community resilience— Guidelines for conducting peer reviews , is available from ISO national member institutes. It may also be obtained directly from the ISO Central Secretariat, respectively through the ISO Store or by contacting the Marketing, Communication & Information department.

For more information regarding the anticipated publication of this new standard, please contact WG 5 Secretary, Shanti Conn at: shanti.conn@bsigroup.org.