A mega disaster can destroy governmentoffices and kill public officials. In the Great East JapanEarthquake (GEJE), many municipalities in Tohoku sufferedserious damage to their office buildings and incurredconsiderable staff losses, which hampered their disasterresponse timing and effectiveness. To compensate for this,many kinds of partnership arrangement were formed betweenlocalities in the affected areas and their counterparts inunaffected areas. Formalizing these partnership arrangementsand building local government capacities to deal withemergency situations are key success factors for developedand developing countries alike. One of the most interestingdevelopments after March 11 was that a variety ofpartnership arrangements evolved between local governmentsaffected by the disaster and those that were unaffected. Theroles that local governments must play in the aftermath of adisaster can be critical. But clear roles andresponsibilities must first be assigned to each tier ofgovernment, specifying what needs to be done by which levelin case of a disaster, and to strengthen their capacities accordingly.