The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is an opportunity to acknowledge the progress being made toward reducing disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health. The 2021 edition focuses on ‘International cooperation for developing countries to reduce their disaster risk and disaster losses’. This is the sixth of the Sendai Seven targets.
The year 2021 promises to be a make-or-break year when it comes to delivering on the policy agenda agreed in 2015. Without real action on climate in the next 10 years, extreme weather events will be overwhelming, especially for developing countries.
Disasters impact low- and middle-income countries disproportionately, particularly in terms of mortality, numbers of people injured, displaced and homeless, economic losses (as a percentage of GDP) and damage to critical infrastructure. We cannot eradicate poverty and hunger if we don’t step up investments in disaster risk reduction. International cooperation for developing countries through Official Development Aid (ODA) and capacity building is essential to boost disaster resilience in the face of extreme weather events and other natural and man-made hazards.
The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction was started in 1989, after a call by the United Nations General Assembly for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction. Held every October 13, the day celebrates how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of reining in the risks that they face.
In 2015 at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, the international community was reminded that disasters hit hardest at the local level with the potential to cause loss of life and great social and economic upheaval. Sudden onset disasters displace millions of people every year. Disasters, many of which are exacerbated by climate change, have a negative impact on investment in sustainable development and the desired outcomes.
It is also at the local level that capacities need to be strengthened urgently. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is people-focused and action-oriented in its approach to disaster risk reduction and applies to the risk of small-scale and large-scale disasters caused by man-made or natural hazards, as well as related environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks.
Sendai Framework at local level
The Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient are developed with the launch of the campaign in order to accelerate implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030) at the local level. The ten Essentials map directly against the Sendai priorities of action and its indicators for monitoring actions on disaster risk reduction. They are the critical and independent steps that need to be undertaken to build and maintain resilience. This document provides the rationale for each Essential, pointing out strategic areas of intervention and identifying key actions. The actions identified under each Essential should be part of the overall disaster risk reduction planning process and influence urban development planning and design.
Understanding risk means understanding what we know, what we don’t know, and even perhaps trying to grapple with what we know we don’t know. Risk is complex. We need to understand how to deal with it without resorting to reductive measures that isolate and ignore the systemic nature of risk. We must push back against institutions, governance approaches and research modalities that treat risks in isolation and outside of their socio-ecological and socioeconomic contexts.
The Sendai Framework takes an interconnected and pluralistic approach to understanding risk. It recognises that the behaviour of systems is non-linear. And it includes a broad spectrum of hazards beyond the natural to include the human-made. It exhorts us to make a fundamental shift in the way in which we develop and use information to make our decisions – away from the deliberate simplification of a problem and its causes by removing it from its context.
We must break away from the prevailing practice of compartmentalized research, hazard-by-hazard risk assessment and management if we are to improve our understanding of complex systems and risk and collectively identify solutions. This applies as much to our institutional configurations and mechanisms for risk governance, as it does to community organization, our research endeavours, and macro-economic policy.
Climate risk is a major driver and amplifier of disaster losses and failed development.
It amplifies risk. Decades-old projections about climate change have come true much sooner than we expected and at a calamitous scale. The global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels that the Paris Agreement sought to cap, will be surpassed in the late 2030s or early 2040s.
Worse, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimates that if countries restrict effort to the commitments made in the Paris Agreement, we are looking at warming in the realm of 2.9 degrees Celsius to 3.4 degrees Celsius. Non-linear change in hazard intensity and frequency is already a reality. Emergent climate-related risks will alter most of our current risk metrics.
Risk reduction processes have multiple connections with climate change mitigation, adaptation and vulnerability reduction. And yet few disaster risk reduction plans take these connections into account.
Governments have a responsibility for creating an environment in which people prosper and the planet thrives. This is non-negotiable. Investing in risk reduction is investing in the public good, but political cycles, competitive agendas and strained budgets make planning and taking responsibility for delivering change difficult.
Despite the evidence that no one – individual or country – is immune to risk, budgeting for the ‘what if?’ does not come naturally to governments. But planning and risk-informed investment is common sense and should be translated into action. Being able to generate and collect robust data, define risk and then implement initiatives that respond accordingly, make for smart decisions and investments.
The Sendai Framework Target (E) requires governments to develop aligned national and local disaster risk reduction strategies and is the only target that is to be met by 2022.
These national and local DRR strategies are the foundation for the achievement of the 2030 targets. It has become very clear over the last 12 months that international cooperation to developing countries is not keeping pace with the rise in extreme weather events and the tragic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This lack of solidarity with nations that have contributed least to creating the climate emergency and that lack the resources to vaccinate their populations in good time, is an issue that the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction wants to draw attention to on October 13, the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.
At the same time, we also want all concerned to highlight on the Day what works well when it comes to this important target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
International cooperation can have a powerful influence on reducing disaster losses in countries struggling to eradicate poverty.
It can bring vital support to low-income countries struggling to implement their national strategies for disaster risk reduction.
There are many good examples of development assistance helping to reduce loss of life by supporting multi-hazard early warning systems, restoring protective eco-systems, building flood defenses and cyclone shelters, to mention a few.
International cooperation is essential for the success of the COVAX initiative to ensure equitable access to vaccines and to avoid the emergence of deadly variants of the Coronavirus.
UN Member States were absolutely right to include international cooperation to developing countries as one of the seven targets when the Sendai Framework was adopted in 2015.
Only together can we make true progress towards a safer and more resilient planet. (UN News)
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