Mr Animesh Kumar, Deputy Chief of the UNDRR Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific outlined the rationale of the workshop: “By definition, humanitarian action and response should be of limited duration. However, recurrent and protracted disasters have resulted in a substantial increase in the average length of humanitarian crises, often making humanitarian action the ‘new normal’. Disaster risk reduction offers a suite of tools, approaches and actions that helps strengthen the humanitarian programme cycle while reducing the humanitarian burden.”

The workshop included a review of case studies from protracted crises settings as in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and recurrent crises such as in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Participants identified specific opportunities and recommendations for better integrating DRR into the various elements of the humanitarian programme cycle: preparedness, assessment and analysis, planning, financing, and coordination.

“DRR in this disaster-prone region turns out to be a classic nexus issue: it’s a pressing problem that requires a combination of development, humanitarian, and sometimes peace-building action to solve,” said Mr Robert Smith, Chief of Humanitarian-Development Collaboration Section at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

These recommendations will be validated and refined through a global workshop to be organized by UNDRR in Geneva in February 2020. The final recommendations on integrating DRR into humanitarian and development programming will be shared with the UN system, humanitarian agencies and development partners to inform ongoing and future plans. Results will also be shared at the 2020 Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, being convened by UNDRR and hosted by the Government of Australia. 

Date:

12 Dec 2019

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (UNDRR AP)

Themes:

Fragility and conflict

Countries:

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines

Regions:

Asia