Global assessments in DRR
From HFA-PEDIA
Contents |
2007 Global Assessment Review
The 2007 Global Assessment Review is the first of ISDR's Biennial Global Reviews. It concluded that a radical realignment of priorities in addressing the Hyogo Framework for Action were deemed necessary for the growing population living in high risk conditions to be adequately protected.
Current emphasis on saving lives has to be complemented by a vision of protecting and strengthening livelihoods and human development. While political momentum for creating new systems and laws for disaster risk reduction is building, the Review states that lack of dedicated resources from national budgets and trained personnel to implement plans, may inhibit progress in reducing risks.
The Review defines two main categories of disaster risk, both of which may be exacerbated by climate change, and are closely related to trends in development activity.
The rural poor and marginal urban communities in particular, are increasingly subject to ‘extensive disaster risks’ – that is, highly localized, low intensity but cumulative disaster impacts from small-scale, mainly climatic hazards. This kind of risk is increasing rapidly due to climate change and factors such as environmental degradation. Despite causing lower apparent mortality and damage, it represents a significant challenge to sustainable livelihoods and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Evidence also shows that the impact of ‘intensive disaster risks’ – characteristic of large-scale hazards affecting densely populated areas, is becoming more severe. Climate change and rapid urbanization may continue to increase mortality and economic losses caused by the incidence of large-scale climatic and geological hazards.
The Review emphasizes the need for addressing underlying risk factors, through livelihood diversification, environmental management, climate change adaptation, better building practices and settlement planning.
See: 2007 Global Review
2009 Global Assessment Report
UNISDR is presently coordinating efforts of governmental, international and civil society partners to produce a Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR/DRR). The report is expected to be launched by the UN Secretary General at the second session of the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2009.
The 2009 Global Assessment Report proposes, among other things, an in-depth analysis of trends and patterns in extensive risk and of the interactive links between extensive risk and rural and urban poverty. The analysis will take advantage of major advances in recent years of the development of national disaster loss databases in both Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia, and for the first time provide a detailed quantitative picture of the manifestations of extensive risk in a wide range of countries. Such analysis is extremely relevant to an application of disaster loss databases across Asia and LAC.
The primary objectives of the 2009 Global Assessment Report will be to:
- 1. Establish a credible and widely accepted reference point for information on global disaster risk patterns and trends;
- 2. Increase understanding and awareness of the mutually supportive relationship between development and disaster risk reduction by specifically focusing on links between disaster risk and poverty trends; and
- 3. Strengthen the ISDR system’s capacity for planning and joint programming at all levels by providing a global level review of national, regional and thematic reporting on implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action.
Furthermore, it will focus on three main aspects:
- 1. Global risk update;
- 2. Thematic analysis of disaster risk and poverty reduction; and
- 3. HFA progress review.
See also: Global platform for disaster risk reduction
Global risk update
Global Disaster Risk Patterns and Trends Analysis
The Disaster Risk Reduction: 2007 Global Review undertook an analysis of the results of major global reports launched in 2004 and 2005 by ISDR system partners such as UNDP, World Bank, IADB and CRED; formulating a number of key hypothesis and questions on the state of global disaster risk. Building on this interpretation, the 2009 Global Assessment Report will develop a comprehensive set of indicators and indexing on global disaster risk, providing partners of the ISDR system with a baseline of risk information against which priorities can be established and progress evaluated at the national, regional and international levels.
The different components of the global risk update will be coordinated jointly by the ISDR secretariat (UNISDR) and the World Bank, with key contributions from UNEP, Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Munich Reinsurance and other partners. Major support for the global risk update will be provided through the Global Risk Information Platform (GRIP), by UNDP, and ProVention.
Extensive Risk Analysis
The Global Risk Update will also provide inputs to an examination of extensive risk patterns, by analysing the information available in national disaster databases in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. This component will form a key part of analyzing the links between disaster risk and poverty.
Thematic analysis of disaster risk and poverty reduction
Disater Risk and Poverty Trends
It is widely accepted that disasters disproportionately affect the poorest. Evidence also shows that poverty is a key factor in increasing disaster risk, while disaster impacts deepen and perpetuate poverty trends. There is, however, remarkably little hard evidence that assesses the long-term impact of disasters on the lives and livelihoods of poor urban and rural communities’ worldwide.
Most previous work on exploring the link between poverty reduction and disaster risk reduction has mainly focused on assessing poverty ‘outcomes’ of intensive / catastrophic risks. Such analysis has typically centred around post-disaster scenarios where loss is assessed in terms of structural and macro-economic impacts at the national level, or in terms of economic ‘assets’ lost at the local level.
The 2009 Global Assessment Report intends to build on this previous analysis and focus attention on the impacts of highly localized, low intensity disaster events on poverty trends. The analysis will look at economic impacts with a specific focus on ‘secondary impacts’ as witnessed in people’s changing livelihood options and coping strategies.
In particular, the analysis will focus around the following streams:
Extensive Risk-Poverty Analysis
Through extensive risk analysis and detailed country case studies, the 2009 Global Assessment Report will identify how disaster impacts may deepen poverty and human development ‘traps’ across rural and urban areas. The evidence presented will make the case for adopting disaster risk reduction as a key instrument to reduce poverty, and for poverty reduction, in turn, to contribute to reducing disaster risks. The analysis will also factor in the conclusions of a major study being commissioned by the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and the World Bank on the costs and benefits of disaster risk reduction.
Thirty-year loss data will be compared to assess the extent and nature of losses over time in housing, agricultural production, livelihoods and local infrastructure due to frequently occurring small-scale, mainly climatic hazard events over extensive areas. The analysis will also enable a characterization of the localities and social groups most affected.
The analysis will focus on quantitatively comparing disaster outcomes at the local level with a range of indices that would characterize the disaster-poverty interface (demographic tendencies, household surveys, environmental indicators, access to basic services, etc). The comparison will be complemented by a qualitative analysis which will entail a series of country case studies, with a particular emphasis on examining governance and policy settings.
Disaster-Poverty Interface
Building on previous analyses done in the area of linking poverty and disaster risks, it will be essential to understand the dynamic interface between unfolding poverty and disaster risk trends, with an emphasis on the factors that distill these dynamics across scenarios. The interface will be explored not simply as an inconvenient challenge to development as created by the impact of disasters on the poor, but rather as a dynamic process of mutual cause and effect between poverty trends and disaster risks. The analysis will be conducted with an emphasis on mapping-out actors who influence the disaster-poverty interface.
Review of Strategies for Disaster and Poverty Reduction
In-depth case study analyses from across regions will be invited from partners working worldwide to furnish evidence of the dynamic disaster-poverty interface. Reviews of strategies for disaster and poverty reduction in the areas of sustainable livelihoods, community-based disaster risk management, risk transfer and social funds and climate change adaptation practices will enable an assessment of what kinds of practices have successfully addressed the disaster risk – poverty nexus in the past.
Case studies and practice reviews will be compiled to seek explanations on how the disaster-poverty interface has been understood and implemented across such practices and local contexts. As work on the 2009 Global Assessment Report progresses, more areas for analysis and case-by-case illustrations will no doubt emerge.
HFA progress review
Progress Reviews on the Implementation of HFA
The broad objective of setting up the ISDR system-wide reporting mechanism is to capture areas of progress and challenges at the global, regional, national and local levels, with regard to achieving the strategic goals and core results of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA).
Country and regional reviews
In the HFA, States identified the importance of monitoring and reporting as an essential feature for ensuring its implementation. Responsibility for monitoring and reporting is mainly assigned to States (in paragraph 30), regional organizations and institutions (paragraph 31), international organizations (paragraph 32) and ISDR system partners and secretariat (paragraph 33). Relevant paragraphs outlining such requirements in the Hyogo Framework are listed in Annex 1.
Specific reporting requirements for States include the preparation of national baseline assessments, periodic summaries and progress reviews, reports on risk reduction progress in other policy frameworks, e.g. Millennium Development Goals (MDG), as well as contributing to regional assessments. States also agreed to develop procedures for reviewing progress against the HFA and to develop or refine indicators at the national level.
This exercise is designed to be part of an online mechanism which will facilitate easy access worldwide to the online tool, reaching out to partners at all levels. The use of standardized indicators and benchmarks, together with online reporting, will be promoted to improve the consistency and quality of information shared.
According to existing capacities and regional arrangements, inter-governmental, regional and subregional organizations will be encouraged to support HFA progress reviews for their member countries.
National and regional progress reviews will have a two-year cycle beginning in March 2008, harmonized with the ISDR system’s joint work-planning as well as regional and Global Platform meetings on Disaster Risk Reduction.
Thematic reviews
Global reviews of progress in specific thematic areas are to be carried out by ISDR system partners and thematic platforms dedicated to specific issues.
Coordination and support
Coordination and guidance to the national, regional and thematic progress reviews will be supported by the ISDR secretariat. ISDR regional offices, in particular, will play a key role in supporting the review process in each region and in backstopping regional and subregional inter-governmental organizations.
It is also expected that UNDP Country Offices would provide critical support to national authorities in the development of progress reviews, in the context of ongoing national capacity building efforts.
Guidance on the online mechanism (the HFA Monitor) and specific indicators of progress for reporting progress at national, regional and international levels, with key thematic focus areas, will be provided by the ISDR secretariat.
