Disaster Ready Fund

The Disaster Ready Fund (DRF) is the Australian Government’s flagship disaster resilience and risk reduction initiative which will deliver projects that support Australians to manage the physical and social impacts of disasters caused by climate change and other natural hazards.

The Australian Government has announced up to $1 billion for the DRF over five years, from 1 July 2023. Round 1 provided $200 million of Commonwealth investment for 187 projects in 2023-24.
The primary objectives of the DRF are to:   

1. Increase the understanding of natural hazard disaster impacts, as a first step towards reducing disaster impacts in the future
2. Increase the resilience, adaptive capacity and/or preparedness of governments, community service organisations and affected communities to minimise the potential impact of natural hazards and avert disasters, and
3. Reduce the exposure to risk, harm and/or severity of a natural hazard’s impacts, including reducing the recovery burden for governments and vulnerable and/or affected communities.

In June 2023, the Commonwealth announced the 23 SA projects funded under DRF Round 1. A list of both the SA and all nationally funded DRF projects can also be found on the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) website.

DRF Round 2

Funding for DRF Round 2 will become available in 2024-25. NEMA expects to release the DRF Round 2 guidelines by the end of December 2023.

For any DRF queries please contact safecom.drf@eso.sa.gov.au.