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Global Platform for Risk Reduction 2019

By Colin McQuistan On 12.05.2019 Influence & ImpactBlog

The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) takes place every two years. The platform is the foremost gathering for experts to explore how to reduce disaster risk and build the resilience of communities and nations. The platform is convened by the UNDRR, the United Nations office for DRR, and this year is hosted by the government of Switzerland. More than 4,000 participants and delegates from over 180 countries are registered to attend. This is a rich and diverse group of actors that bridge the worlds of humanitarian aid and development, representing, indigenous communities, gender, the disabled, academia, research, the private sector and civil society organisations. Critically this Global Platform is the last opportunity to support governments to implement national and local disaster risk reduction strategies before they are due to report on these alongside reporting on progress to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals in 2020.

The recent global assessment of disasters reports that “Overall, floods have affected more people than any other type of disaster in the 21st century, including in 2018”. It is also clear that in many cases these losses are avoidable if resilience building is implemented more effectively. We believe this needs to start at the community level and is about not just implementing hazard mitigation measures but also empowering communities and individuals to make informed choices about the resilience building options available to them. Practical Action had a team from Nepal, Peru and the UK attending the meeting and we will contribute our practical field focused expertise at a number of events. This is all happening at a key moment when global attention is sensitised to the increased threat of loss and damage due to increasingly climate-supercharged extreme events such as Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Southern Africa. This is an opportunity to share our expertise in building the resilience of communities around the world and to influence policy makers to increase ex ante disaster funding and improve resilience policies, building on our expertise from the field.

One area of special interest is to increase awareness of the scale of the loss and damage that is avoidable based on existing technologies.  Why is this ‘avoidable’ loss and damage still occurring? Because their is insufficient investment and many of the communities in which we work are just not seen as a priority.  So despite significant progress in developing early warning systems across the world, often by making use of advances in science and technology, huge unmet needs remain. Many developing countries, in particular least developed countries (LDCs), small island developing states (SIDS), are not benefiting from these advances in the science and technology . Significant gaps remain, especially in reaching the “last mile” – the most remote and vulnerable populations with timely, understandable and actionable warning information, including lack of understanding to use available information. This is where Practical Action has a specific set of practical skills and we will be sharing this expertise at the Multi-Hazard Early Warning Conference (MHEWC-II) which takes place on the two days prior to the global platform starting on Wednesday.

Monday 13th May Session 2: Enhancing the link between Early Warning and Early Action (EWEA) through impact-based forecasts (IBF). Madhab Uprerty from our Nepal programme will be sharing the latest experiences from our work in the Karnali river basin to make post event relief more effective.
Monday 13th May Session 3: Science Technology and Innovation. Miguel Arestegui from our Peru programme will be sharing our experiences in ensuring socially relevant warning communication technologies reach the communities in a timely manner
Tuesday 14th May Session 5: Evaluation of the socio-economic benefits of multi-hazard early warning systems. Colin McQuistan from the UK will be presenting our work on the cost and benefits of EWS in Nepal and how trust in EWS messages are unlocking additional resilience dividends from communities previously devastated by flash floods

The workshop is organized by the International Network for Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (IN-MHEWS), in conjunction with the 2019 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, the workshop aims to demonstrate how the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning and risk information can be improved, particularly highlighting the role that national governance plays in implementing and sustaining these systems.  The workshop will make recommendations to the global platform on progress to achieve Sendai target G, Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi‑hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people by 2030.

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