Participants at today's Expert Meeting on the Global Risk Assessment Framework at the UN in Geneva

By David Singh

20 November, Geneva: Disaster risk reduction experts from around the world today began discussions on a new Global Risk Assessment Framework which can support UN Member States seeking to reduce disaster losses through implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

A key objective of the meeting is to identify what challenges must be overcome to create a global risk assessment framework that is inclusive of all hazards included in the scope of the Sendai Framework, the global plan to reduce disaster losses adopted in March 2015.

Today and tomorrow at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, over 150 experts and DRR professionals are debating key disaster risk management issues that straddle the ongoing efforts to arrest climate change and eradicate poverty.

The two areas of the meeting’s focus are on the demand for risk development at the global level, and in depth examination of the current state of disaster risk modelling and assessment.

Opening the meeting, Mr. Robert Glasser, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction said Member States had demanded a more comprehensive re-examination of the approach to global risk assessment “if potential global losses are to be more accurately assessed and global risk identified and estimated.”

He hoped that participants would be able to reach a better understanding of the needs of end-users “allowing us to identify gaps to be addressed, while identifying and exploring opportunities and challenges for convergence and collective endeavor”.