About DRR, CCA and SDGs

Co-Chair: Riyanti Djalante and Rajib Shaw

Collaborators: Joy Pereira (ICoE in Malaysia), Emily Chan (ICoE in Hong Kong), Frank Thomalla (ICoE in Thailand), Ailsa Holloway (ICoE in South Africa)

  1. Context

The impacts of climate change, along with increased population, urbanizations and environmental degradation, span across all aspects within the society. Climate change is changing the characteristics of disasters. EMDAT (2018) shows that 87% of disasters are climate-related, causing 88% deaths, affected 97% of people and cost 74% from total figures.

 

The world has adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) to help deal with disaster impacts through strengthened governance, better risk knowledge, resilience investment, and preparedness and recovery and reconstruction. The Paris agreement on climate change is the international framework adopted to deal climate change. While the overall aim for the Paris agreement is to limit warming by 2 degrees by 2100. The current mitigation efforts are not within the required warming pathways and even if the it does, warming will still continue and the effects are still to be dealt with through adapting to climate change. The are many strategies to deal with climate change, mostly through strengthening institutions, planning and implementation of strategies for adaptation. DRR has also been suggested as the ‘first line of defense’ for CCA. They both advocate for vulnerability reduction, strengthening resilience, and integrations of climate risks considerations within development. In addition, the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 by which disasters and climate change are strongly recognized particularly in goals number 11 on cities and 13 on climate change. It is important that strategies to deal with DRR and CCA, also needs to meet the SDGs strategically. While these 3 international frameworks are clear in terms of their intended outcome, the way by which the progress can be measured are still unclear.

 

Capacity for research and scientific engagement related to DRR-CCA-Development also need to be strengthened. A recent report by Elsevier (2017) suggests that the countries that are at risks from disasters do not produce as many publications as those in the USA, China and Japan. It is important to encourage scientific research and engagements within developing countries mainly Asia and Africa.

 

This concept brief outlines rationale, key activities and deliverables for the formation of working group of an integrated DRR-CCA-SDGs conceptualization and actions. This working group complements the existing and new groups within the IRDR.

 

  1. Key activities (2018-2020)

  • Develop of blue-print of research agenda on the integrated approach of DRR-CCA-SDGs 2018-2020
  • Conduct research activities and publications, particularly related to:
    • Harmonization of targets and indicators within the DRR-CCA-SDGs frameworks,
    • Review of governance approaches and solutions scanning in dealing with DRR-CCA-SDGs
    • Documentation of emergent innovations at the local level, by non-traditional actors such as local communities, SMEs, NGOs in dealing with impacts of climate risks and at the same time, advocating for and creating better/expanded livelihood strategies
    • Review of cities progress and programming at city level and innovative governance approaches by which they integrate DRR-CCA-SDGs.
  • Strengthen of scientific networks and formation of community of practice especially within the developing countries context. Existing networks related to DRR-CCA-SDGs will be identified and approached to enable better connections. It will also plan for better engagement through online conversation/collaborations/knowledge sharing
  • Involve with key and strategic political events, flagships and scientific conferences to introduce and advance the agenda
  • Work closely with two or three relevant ICoEs to foster partnerships
  • Involve IRDR Young Scientists in capacity building programs of research and scientific writing on DRR-CCA-SDG

 

  1. Deliverables

    • Blue print of research agenda between 2018-2020 (Mid of 2018)
    • Publications of research activities, as reports, academic articles, policy briefs, and video interviews (2018-2020, 2 publications /year)
    • Formation of scientific network and online community of practice on DRR-CCA-SDGs particularly within the region of Asia, and Africa (early 2019)
    • Participations in goal and target harmonization for SFDRR, PA and SDGs, by UNISDR, and engagements key political events and scientific conferences per year (2 / year)