Online Workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction,

Risk-informed Governance, Finance Mechanisms and Innovative Solutions for Local Resilience

Week One: 11 April (Tuesday), 13 April (Thursday)

Week Two: 18 April (Tuesday)

14:00-17:30 (Seoul Time)

 Application form

https://bit.ly/3RBE11W  

I. Background

“We are at an inflection point in history. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a wake-up call and with the climate crisis now looming, the world is experiencing its biggest shared test since the Second World War. Humanity faces a stark and urgent choice: breakdown or breakthrough. The disastrous effects of a changing climate – famine, floods, fires and extreme heat – threaten our very existence”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres^[1] 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development places great importance on disaster risk reduction (DRR) as a cross-cutting element in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2030 Agenda proposes concrete commitments to reduce risk, vulnerability, build capacity and promote resilience to disasters.^[2] Reducing disaster risk and building resilience are interrelated thrusts of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and theSendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.^[3] The Sendai Framework calls on governments to move towards risk-informed governance arrangements that include broader hazard and risk scope and incorporate the concept of systemic risk. Priorities of the Sendai Framework expressly call for strengthening disaster risk planning, governance and financing to manage disaster risk.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its report of August 2021 issued a code red for humanity. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized that the window of opportunity to prevent the worst climate impacts is rapidly closing as no region is immune to the impending disaster. Based on lessons learned from COVID-19, governments’ ability to respond to climate change, disaster risk and resilience has been undermined due to the pandemic.^[4] The impact has underscored the importance of strategic planning and foresight, an organized, systematic way of looking beyond the expected to engage with uncertainty and complexity. The COVID-19 pandemic also brought renewed attention to the importance of strengthening multi-hazard DRR and risk governance to build a safer and more resilient world.^[5]

Climate change is a defining challenge of the 21^st century, and it is both compounding existing threats to sustainable development as well as creating new obstacles. Climate change is undermining or, in some cases, reversing the effectiveness and sustainability of development interventions. Heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, tropical cyclones, sea-level rise and ocean warming, and acidification are all phenomena that can undermine countries’ ability to achieve the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Effectively integrating Climate Action and DRR into National/Sustainable Development Plans requires enabling policies, guidelines, legal frameworks, capacities and investments at the national and sub-national levels.

According to the Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2022,^[6] the Asia-Pacific region needs to accelerate its progress on all 17 SDGs. As per the current path, progress towards the SDGs in the Asia-Pacific region has slowed as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have exacerbated development challenges. The region is not on track to achieve any of the 17 SDGs. In this regard, building resilience, adapting to climate change, and adequately integrating innovative financing mechanisms to secure SDGs implementation are particularly crucial, especially for local authorities in Asia and the Pacific region.

This training will first provide concepts, tools and approaches for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 at the local level, and provide an opportunity to learn about the global initiative on Making Cities Resilient (MCR2030) launched in 2020 to ensure cities become inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030, contributing directly to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) and other global frameworks including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement and the New Urban Agenda. The training will introduce the Handbook on Strengthening Resilience in Cities and Local Communities through Innovation and Digital Governance as well as the Toolkit^[7]on Risk-informed Governance and Innovative Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience, which is part of UN DESA’s Curriculum on Governance for SDGs and provide specific guidance on leveraging innovative technologies for disaster risk reduction and resilience. The training will also take stock of mechanisms and tools to enhance local financial resilience to disaster and leverage global climate finance to ease the challenges ahead for the actual implementation of disaster resilient governance and planning. Throughout the sessions, to improve learning outcomes, examples of innovative solutions to build resilience across all levels of society and interactive quiz activities will be provided.

II. Workshop Objectives

The capacity building training workshop, while promoting risk-informed planning, governance and finance, will:

1.      Support the localization and implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030;

2.      Explore the diagnosis tool for assessing resilience progress and preparing an evidence-based risk reduction and resilience planning

3.      Get familiar with Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) and additional resources to enhance local resilience

4.      Introduce the Handbook on Strengthening Resilience in Cities and Local Communities through Innovation and Digital Governance as well as the Toolkit on Risk-Informed Governance and Innovative Technology for DRR and Resilience to specifically provide guidance on leveraging data and digital government for DRR and resilience;

5.      Improve understanding of the 11 principles of governance for the SDGs for building local resilience;

6.      Introduce disaster risk reduction financing tools and mechanisms for local decision-makers with a consideration of global climate finance.

III. Expected Outcomes

By the end of the training workshop, participants would have:

a)      Understood the global framework for disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and innovative finance mechanism in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

b)      Enhanced their understanding on MCR2030, resilience roadmap, and how to join this global initiative and access useful tools and resources to enhance local resilience;

c)      Experienced in using the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities to assess their city resilience progress for the development of an evidence- and needs-based action plan;

d)      Increased their understanding and strengthened their capacities on Governance Innovation and Leveraging Risk-informed Governance for DRR and Resilience;

e)      Improved their understanding of the 11 principles of governance for the SDGs for building local resilience;

f)       Strengthened their knowledge of disaster risk reduction financing mechanisms and tools for local decision makers and related external resources available, such as global climate funds, to facilitate the implementation.

IV. Structure and Methodology

The training will consist of lectures and thematic presentations by experts, case study presentations, interactive Q&A discussion, and knowledge check quizzes and exercises. The session-based assessments will enable participants to transform in-depth learning into practice and familiarize with coordinated action for decision-making. The workshop is composed of three Sessions and the thematic focus of each session will include:

Session 1: Understanding Disaster Risk and Planning for Resilience at Global, National and Local Levels

This session will introduce key concepts and issues related to disaster risk and resilience in the context of climate change and complex systemic risks. The aim of the session is to strengthen participants’ understanding of global and local risks, key global policy frameworks and new approaches to risk governance, as well as tools for national and local planning and implementation. In particular, the session will introduce a useful tool for urban planning, the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities, which cities can use to create a baseline understanding of their resilience progress, identify gaps and needs and identify actions to enhance the level of disaster and climate resilience. The session will include a short presentation on the tool, a hands-on exercise for participants to practice using the tool and sharing the experience of other local governments that have used the tools in identifying actions and taking a systematic approach to reducing disaster and climate risks. Participants will get an opportunity to share their experiences and cases during the open discussion. The session will also present the Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) initiative and introduce the MCR2030 resilience roadmap framework and its network of partners for the implementation of SDG11, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement and the New Urban Agenda.

Session 2: Risk-informed Sustainable Development: Accelerating Resilience in Cities and Local Communities through Digital Government Innovation

Risk-informed sustainable development, digital government innovation and frontier technologies present rapidly evolving prospects for building resilience across countries. Effective public governance and digital technologies have the potential for strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability. The concept of resilient cities is encapsulated within Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 thus, to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Governments are increasingly strengthening their governance systems and leveraging frontier technologies to ensure resilience and reduce disaster risk and climate impact. Digital government tools and particularly open data and big data analytics can enable governments to effectively anticipate, prepare, and respond to risks and disasters as part of the early warning systems. Innovative technologies have become more significant in building resilient societies, especially for those countries in special situations to help build back-better in times of disaster. To strengthen resilience, and accelerate cities’ development, spatial, long, short-term, and fiscal strategies, plans, budgets, and governance arrangements need to consider all risks.

This session will focus on providing fundamental knowledge on risk-informed sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, and its linkage with governance.  The session will highlight and share insights on the significant role of risk-informed governance, innovative technology for DRR, infrastructure asset management, and resilience. The session will also delve into aspects of the Handbook on Strengthening Resilience in Cities and Local Communities through Innovation and Digital Government and the training toolkit on Risk-informed Governance and Innovative Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience, which is part of UN DESA’s Curriculum on Governance for SDGs.

Session 3: Disaster Risk Reduction Financing Mechanisms and Tools for Local Authorities

Climate-related disasters have increased in terms of frequency and severity, causing a surge in economic and human losses, especially for low-income developing countries. One of the major checklists to be resilient towards disasters is to build enough financial readiness to absolve the possible shocks: disaster risk finance. The financial resiliency from disasters of each Asia-Pacific country is essential to respond, recover, and build back better. To assist this, over the past two decades, governments and the international community have introduced related crucial tools, approaches, and programs to build resilience both before and after disaster strikes. Considering the urgency and the extent of the challenges developing countries face represented by recent record- floods and heat and cold waves, demand for establishing and scaling up disaster risk finance is significantly critical and intense.

The session will explore fundamentals and practices of disaster risk reduction finance with a special focus on strengthening countries’ own capacity to enhance financial readiness and to leverage global climate finance to ease impediments, supporting the efforts to protect vulnerable people, particularly in countries vulnerable to climate risks where resources are not sufficient. These will be delivered with best practices demonstrated by other Asia-Pacific countries to facilitate learning and applications of their peer countries. Further, the prominent topics in disaster reduction finance, such as climate finance for early warning systems and the progress in the establishment of loss and damage fund at the Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference (COP 27) are planned to be covered.

V. Lead Coordinating Institutions for the Thematic Sessions

For the effective and efficient coordination of the workshop, each of the thematic sessions will be led and coordinated by one partner organization with support from the others. The responsible roles are as follows:

✔    Opening and Closing Sessions will be jointly led and managed by the three organizations, thus, UN DESA/DPIDG/UNPOG, UNITAR CIFAL Jeju and UNDRR ONEA & GETI.

✔    Session 1 on Understanding Disaster Risk and Planning for Resilience at Global, National and Local Levels will be led and organized by UNDRR ONEA & GETI;

✔   Session 2 on Risk-informed Sustainable Development: Accelerating Resilience in Cities and Local Communities through Digital Government Innovation will be led and organized by UN DESA/DPIDG/UNPOG;

✔    Session 3 on Disaster Risk Reduction Financing Mechanisms and Tools for Local Authorities will be led and organized by UNITAR CIFAL Jeju.

VI. Target Audience

This training is open to local government officials including SDGs, Sendai Framework, climate and urban development focal points and other stakeholders from national government, civil society and institutions in Asia-Pacific and beyond interested in or supporting disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, building resilience, innovative finance mechanism for climate action and sustainable development.

VII. Certificate

UN DESA/DPIDG/UNPOG, UNITAR CIFAL Jeju/JITC, and UNDRR ONEA & GETI will issue a joint certificate of participation to participants upon successful completion and meeting the requirements* of the training.

*Requirements:

●       Attend and actively participate in all three sessions.

●       Submit the pre-workshop and post-workshop knowledge assessments.

VIII. Application and Deadline

Interested participants are required to complete the registration form by 31 March 2023 at https://bit.ly/3RBE11W

IX. Agenda of the Workshop (Subject to change)