UNDP, WMO and UNDRR issue statement on tracking of hazardous events and disaster losses and damages

The UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are collaborating to develop a new tracking system to record and analyse hazardous events and disaster losses and damages.

As part of this collaboration, the three organisations jointly organized a Technical Forum in Bonn, 29-30 November 2022 that saw participation of some 175 representatives of disaster risk management, hydro-meteorological services, and other sectoral entities from some 50 governments and 60 international organisations.

One of the key reference points for the development of this new system is DesInventar that has been in existence since 1994, serving 110 UN Member States. The Forum has recommended to build off this system, while ensuring that the new-generation system is interoperable, matches with the level of data and digital maturity in any specific country, produces disaggregated information, and is able to track hazardous events and losses and damages to scale at both national and local levels on a continual basis.

The new system will be fully aligned with the Sendai Framework and related SDG targets and indicators, and interoperable with the WMO Catalogue of Hazardous events which will provide authoritative records of weather, climate, and water-related hazardous events at the national and regional levels.

There was a call for the partnership among the three organisations to strengthen the capacity of National Disaster Management Offices (NDMOs) and facilitate operational relationships with the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) and other specialized scientific institutions to better track hazardous events and losses and damages. The new system will allow countries to generate better analytics and data visualization to support risk-informed development, disaster preparedness, and humanitarian action.

Thanks to strong collaboration and partnership between the three organisations, the new system is expected to be in place in 2023. The new system design will also benefit from regular inputs from governments and other relevant partners through regular consultations.

The three organisations will also collaborate to develop a policy paper on the data value chain including a framework for hazardous events and losses and damages. The policy paper, the system prototype followed by the new system itself, are all expected to be delivered in 2023 when a country-level roll-out will get underway.