Mr. Glasser recommended that governments and other stakeholders consider creating a Global Partnership for Disaster-related Data for Sustainable Development to spur the effort.

Over the past two decades, the global focus has shifted from treating disasters as a matter of humanitarian relief operations to tackling risk head on.

While mortality has fallen, the need to reduce risk remains clear given that disasters have still claimed more than 76,000 lives and affected over 173 million people, on average, per year since 2005.

Losses have risen steadily, stoked by climate change, unbalanced urbanization and inequalities, with the total direct and indirect costs to the world economy now estimated by the World Bank to be US$520 billion a year. Reducing risk is also good business sense, with studies showing that every dollar invested in preparedness saves up to seven dollars in aftermath costs.

The Sendai Framework’s predecessor was the Hyogo Framework for Action, inked weeks after the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. It had five priorities for reducing disaster risk, but did not set specific targets.

Over its 10-year lifespan, 130 member states participated in monitoring – a process that exposed conflicting evidence, with countries reporting progress on risk reduction policies while losses and damage continued to increase.

One issue was that the Hyogo Framework indicators were heavily input-focused. For example, countries would report that they had a new earthquake-resistant building code, but there was a dearth of data on outputs, such as how many buildings were being constructed based on the new standard, or on outcomes, including whether the buildings actually stayed up or fell down when a shake happened.

Another area that the Sendai Framework seeks to improve is the reduction of future risk, and not just risk as it stands, to ensure that development does not create dangers. For example, the Hyogo Framework measured how many schools were being retrofitted to withstand hazards, but not how many new schools failed to meet disaster risk-reducing standards.

“All our discussions about data and monitoring will only contribute if they are transformed into action,” underlined Peter Felten, Head of the Humanitarian Assistance and Policy Division at the German Federal Foreign Office.

Date:

26 May 2017

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)

Themes:

Capacity Development, Information Management, Risk Identification & Assessment, Economics of DRR, Disaster Risk Management

Regions:

Africa, Americas, Asia, Oceania