Participants at the East African Community (EAC) Parliamentarian Forum on disaster risk reduction have pledged to step up the region's efforts to curb hazard impacts (Photo: UNISDR)

By Evelyne Karanja

NAIROBI, 31 May 2017 – Members of parliament from the six-nation East African Community have vowed to step up a drive to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in their region.

The pledge came at the second edition of the East African Community (EAC) Parliamentarian Forum on disaster risk reduction held in Mombasa, Kenya. It will help put the region on track to meet a looming target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which is to substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020.

The Sendai Framework, adopted in 2015, is a global agreement that seeks to rein in disaster deaths and economic losses, and the 2020 target is a prerequisite for achieving the rest of its aims before it expires in 2030. The framework places a high priority on strengthening governance to curb risk, and it assigns a clear role and mandate to parliamentarians in that process.

At the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan in 2015, parliamentarians from around the globe committed to support an improved institutional set-up for governing disaster risk reduction in order to prevent the generation of new risks arising from development. They pledged to advocate for, and support the review of current institutional arrangements, and initiate appropriate reforms that establish clear roles and responsibilities at all levels of government in support of disaster risk reduction. They also reiterated the need to strengthen coordination and to promote risk-sensitive investments.

UNISDR has provided regular technical support to the EAC and other intergovernmental organizations in Africa as part of the roll-out of the Africa Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Sendai Framework endorsed by the continent’s Heads of State in January 2017. This support resulted in the first-ever regional disaster risk reduction and Management Act in Africa, passed by the East African Community, in 2016. The East African Community is one of Africa’s eight regional intergovernmental agencies. Its members are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda.

At the Mombasa meeting, legislators also agreed to seek support from partner states and donor agencies to strengthen the EAC Parliamentarian Forum, in order for it to effectively back disaster risk reduction and management efforts in the region.