Midterm Review Plenary 3: Rethinking sustainable development; investing with strategic foresight to build resilience

The Provisional List of Speakers for MTR SF Plenary 3

 

This provisional list of speakers for the MTR SF Plenaries is based on expressions of interest received by the Secretariat.

As multistakeholder sessions, the list of speakers in the MTR SF Plenaries will rotate among representatives of Member States, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), UN agencies, funds and programmes, and other stakeholders.

As a large number of requests was received, invitations to speak will be adjusted according to protocol, time permitting, and will be made at the discretion of the Co-Chairs.

In view of the limited time available, delegations that do not have the opportunity to speak can submit their interventions to the Secretariat (midtermreviewsf@un.org).

 

Overview of the MTR SF Plenaries
 

The Plenaries of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (MTR SF) provide States and non-State stakeholders the opportunity to engage in a moderated exchange and discussion to:

  • take stock of progress in implementing the framework since adoption,
  • examine changes in context and new emerging issues since 2015, and those expected in the period to 2030
  • examine renovations to risk governance and risk management that can accelerate and amplify actions pursuing the achievement of the outcome and goal of the Sendai Framework, and risk-informed regenerative and sustainable development.

The MTR SF Plenaries form a central part of the consultations which will inform a report on the MTR SF, that will guide a High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the MTR SF (HLM) in New York on 18 and 19 May 2023.

The HLM will adopt a concise and action-oriented political declaration to renew commitment and accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework which can inform the quadrennial review of the SDGs at the ECOSOC High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July of 2023; the SDGs Summit and the UN Secretary General’s Summit of the Future, at the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly in September 2023; and COP28 in November 2023.

The three MTR SF Plenaries – each with a thematic focus – will take place over two days in hybrid format and inform the outcome of the Global Platform 2022. Presided over by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the host Government, MTR SF Plenary sessions are open to all registered participants of the Global Platform 2022.

Summary of MTR SF Plenary 3

The operating environment in which the Sendai Framework and other frameworks are being implemented at global, regional, national and local levels, has altered immeasurably since 2015, not least with the COVID-19 pandemic and global warming through anthropogenic climate change. Both demonstrate the systemic nature of risk, and demand urgent and fundamental reflections on how the world seeks to understand, collaborate and manage risk within the context of sustainable and regenerative development in the 21st century; now, to 2030 and beyond.

This Plenary will therefore initiate a forward-looking discussion on how we address risk in a way that is timely, coherent and is drawn from diverse knowledge systems, and explores the shifts in values, perspectives and paradigms that underpin current efforts to rethink approaches to sustainable development.

While convening this discussion, the Plenary will explore options of enhancing or renovating existing arrangements and tools present in the multilateral system to identify, govern and address risk to build resilience in a rapidly destabilizing world.

The Plenary will specifically talk about institutional and collaborative arrangements within sustainable development, that can be ‘fit for purpose’ and thus more ‘effective’ for developing capacities to foster relationships, collective endeavour and coherence that span institutional silos and levels. This includes: adaptive governance and dispersed coordination practices; inclusive novel partnerships composed of different sectors and actors working vertically and horizontally in an integrated manner, while continuing to strengthen the role of all stakeholders in decision making through an all of State institutions[1] and all-of-society[2] approach.

This Plenary will further discuss identifying key attributes of a multilateral system that can effectively address risk and build resilience, particularly in the context of imminent and emerging risks. It can also discuss options to actualize these attributes through a range of measures.

The discussions will focus on enhancing the effectiveness, accountability and inclusivity of the multilateral system, including by addressing fragmentation, gridlock and lack of agility, and greater engagement of local communities. It will also consider suggestions on how to end the rigid silos that impede the address of critical issues, and which contribute to risk governance and risk management approaches that promote divergence rather than convergence and coherence.

Context

As with the rapidly changing riskscape and our understanding of it, the architecture and mechanisms of risk governance and risk management at the international and national levels available to address these risks are also evolving. These bring both challenges and opportunities.

Contemporary policy measures and initiatives are moving in the direction of being more receptive to a more complex understanding of risk that more accurately depicts the interdependent relationship between the economy, environment, and society. Such risk reduction measures and initiatives, however, are often still hampered by aspects of ‘sectorisation’, ‘departmentalisation’ and artificial separation by mandate, which can result in, for example, structural inefficiencies, or a lack of public trust when multiple perspectives and the contextual agency of local communities are not adequately incorporated. Such measures and initiatives often also fall short of accounting for the scope of risks and hazards highlighted in the Sendai Framework, do not consider scenarios for catastrophic risks, nor invest adequately in flexibility to enable pre-adaptative capacity. Within this context, reform and realignment are imperative.

The current disposition of the multilateral system has been successful in ‘agenda setting’ by developing i) global frameworks (e.g., the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, etc.) that, in part, address critical hazards and risks, and ii) also developing a framework dedicated to, inter alia, the governance of these hazards and risks (Sendai Framework). Taken together, these frameworks provide the basis for an all-of-society framework for risk governance at the global and regional levels.

However, as demonstrated so starkly by COVID-19 and other intersecting and cascading risks and hazards (both current and emerging), the global risk governance architecture – and the risk management mechanisms that emanate from it – are inadequate[1]. This situation is compounded by the fact that an increasing number of stakeholders now view the multilateral system and its institutions as not being ‘fit for purpose’ to govern and adapt effectively to today's realities. These institutions are often seen as inadequate to effectively address risk in their own domains, thus making addressing the systemic nature of risk even harder. Deficient governance can lead to initiatives with insufficient commitment – political and economic; further increasing knowledge gaps.

The Plenary may therefore explore renovations that, for example:

  • facilitate novel collaboration among multilateral entities that allow earlier and better identification of anomalies and signals of risk creation and propagation to be identified,
  • that subsequently trigger timely transdisciplinary, inter-institutional action to explore and implement pre-adaptive approaches to prevent and reduce risk, and  ultimately support reliable ‘monitoring’ and ‘follow up’ on the implementation of policies intended to address these risks and build resilience.

 

Broadening the Conversation

In 2019, the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR)[1] identified the centrality of “building greater resilience against shocks….at the societal level” whether minimising “the spread of infectious diseases due to human mobility and climate change”, or “financial volatility that can impact individual incomes and the health of economies”, and argued that implementation of the Sendai Framework can support the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, the New Urban Agenda etc.

The report identified six essential entry points and four levers to be applied, where the interconnections among social, ecological, economic and political systems exist for renovating our relationship with risk, and accelerating the transformative power of sustainable development.

In exploring these entry points[2], the GSDR examined levers that can be applied to correct the balance between achieving human well-being and its social and environmental costs; the first of these levers being governance[3]. While recognising that governance approaches need to be “diverse, tailored, innovative and adaptive”, the GSDR emphasises the importance of “using science to support decision-making and develop early-warning systems that can pick up and authenticate weak signals”, of creating institutions and modalities of collaboration “that deal with uncertainties and risks”, and identifies “opportunities for moving in pragmatic, open and pluralist directions in global governance”.

Building on inter alia the UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR)[4] and the GSDR, the Secretary General’s Our Common Agenda report[5], aims to ensure that the UN system is equipped to act more systematically for the long-term. This includes a proposal on strengthening the capacity of the United Nations in foresight and planning through the establishment of a Futures Laboratory, and regularly presenting a Strategic Foresight and Global Risk Report once every five years[6]. It discusses how the current reliance on GDP to determine access to concessional finance and support, could be redressed by inter alia giving greater weight to indices of vulnerability to external shocks and systemic risk criteria[1].

Synchronized with the GAR, the GSDR, and consistent with the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report 2022[2], the proposals contained in the Our Common Agenda report have the potential:

  • for streamlining vast institutional complexity and fragmentation,
  • by convening processes and mechanisms that enable broad agreement for pressing challenges across intersecting, competing, and overlapping interests, and
  • to enable flexible operational and institutional arrangements that are more proactive and include self-organised community structures that operate prospectively, and thus build greater pre-adaptive capacities in fast changing environments.

Proposals that can ultimately strengthen the relevance and effectiveness of the United Nations within the global multilateral system, specifically in relation to addressing risk and building resilience.

 

Guiding Questions

  1. How has the Sendai Framework, together with other landmark UN agreements such as the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement, the New Urban Agenda, the Aichi Targets and the Convention on Biological Diversity, contributed to the shift towards risk-informed sustainable development and associated transformations, including of the multilateral system?
  2. What does effective multilateral risk governance and risk management look like?
  3. How can the UN system be fit-for-purpose to better support this?
  4. How can this be systematically informed by multiple, diverse knowledge systems – including conventional science, and indigenous, local and traditional knowledge systems?
  5. How can the multilateral sustainable development coordination and support architecture better understand, incorporate, and thus effectively address risk, inspire activity in support of the global commons, and deliver public goods?
  6. In pursuing risk-informed sustainable development, how can the proposed Strategic Foresight and Global Risks Report, the GAR and the GSDR be better aligned?
    1. How can these reports be better informed by, inter alia, the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO), IPCC Assessment Reports, and the Global Environmental Outlook?
    Conference content type
    Conference session
    Onsite Accessibility
    On
    Contact
    Marc Gordon, Senior Coordinator, gordon6@un.org, Momoko Nishikawa momoko.nishikawa@un.org, The MTR SF email, midtermreviewsf@un.org
    Display on agenda
    Yes
    Time zone
    Asia/Makassar
    Participation
    Interpretation (Language)
    Primary floor language
    Room/Location
    Nusa Dua Hall
    BNDCC 1-Ground Floor
    Session recording
    Conference event type
    Speakers

    Co-chairs

    • H.E. Airlangga Hartarto, Coordinating Minister for Economy, Ministry of Economy, Indonesia
    • Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction
    Learn more

    Concept Note of the MTR SF Plenary 3
    Technical Guidelines for the MTR SF Plenaries
    Pre-registration for interventions in the MTR SF Plenaries
     

    Related Documents

    Concept Note of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030 (AR/ENG/FR/RU/SP)
    MTR SF Guidance for Member States (AR/ENG/FR/RU/SP)
    MTR SF Guidance for Stakeholders

    Supplementary Recommendations and Guidance for a gender-responsive MTR SF
    Literature Review of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (forthcoming)
    Template for Voluntary National Reports of the MTR SF
    Report of Preliminary Inputs of Stakeholders to the MTR SF 
    List of UNDRR MTR SF Focal Points by region
    Website of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework

    Learn More about the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (MTR SF)

    With climate breakdown and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating the consequences of a failure to better understand and manage risk, and with the achievement of the goals and outcomes of the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in jeopardy, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) decided[1] to hold a “midterm review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030” (MTR SF).

    A retrospective and prospective stocktaking and review exercise, the MTR SF will assess progress made, examine challenges experienced in preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk, explore context shifts and emerging issues, and so identify renovations to risk governance and risk management able to contend with 21st century challenges. It will explore aspects of the integration of risk reduction into development, humanitarian, and climate action, allowing the re-examination and redress of our relationship with risk.

    Through consultations and review by States and other stakeholders, the MTR SF will “assess progress in integrating disaster risk reduction into policies, programmes and investments at all levels, identify good practice, gaps and challenges and accelerate the path to achieving the goal of the Sendai Framework and its seven global targets by 2030”[2].

    States recognised that “the Sendai Framework….provides guidance relevant to a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 and [….] to identify and address underlying drivers of disaster risk in a systemic manner”[3].

    The recommendations of States and non-State stakeholders seek to amplify and accelerate action in all sectors and at all scales through to 2030 and beyond, in pursuit of the outcomes and goals of inter alia the Sendai Framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, and risk-informed sustainable and regenerative development.

    As both a retrospective and prospective exercise, the MTR SF process aims to:

    • Prompt deep reflections in the COVID reality on how we understand the systemic nature of risk, our relationship with it, and how we can reduce disaster risk and loss.
    • Support integrated partnerships and actions that harness what we know and what we do, to shape how we choose, interact and decide.
    • Build collective and relational intelligence to establish new ways of knowing risk and new forms of collaboration that mean risk governance and management mechanisms and approaches are no longer overwhelmed.
    • Develop policy options, and new modalities of implementation through recommendations for Governments and other stakeholders to accelerate realisation of the goal and outcome of the Sendai Framework and risk-informed sustainable development.

    Guided by the Concept Note of the MTR SF, the Guidance for Member States, and the Guidance for Stakeholders, which can be accessed here. Consultations and review will generate critical analysis to assist countries and stakeholders develop recommendations for prioritised, accelerated and integrated international, national and local cooperation and action in the period 2023 to 2030, and to initiate nascent thinking on possible international arrangements for risk-informed sustainable development beyond 2030.

    Event bucket
    Official Programme

    Midterm Review Plenary 2: Beyond natural hazards – operationalising the expanded scope of the Sendai Framework

    The Provisional List of Speakers for MTR SF Plenary 2

    This provisional list of speakers for the MTR SF Plenaries is based on expressions of interest received by the Secretariat.

    As multistakeholder sessions, the list of speakers in the MTR SF Plenaries will rotate among representatives of Member States, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), UN agencies, funds and programmes, and other stakeholders.

    As a large number of requests was received, invitations to speak will be adjusted according to protocol, time permitting, and will be made at the discretion of the Co-Chairs.

    In view of the limited time available, delegations that do not have the opportunity to speak can submit their interventions to the Secretariat (midtermreviewsf@un.org)

    Overview of the MTR SF Plenaries

    The Plenaries of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (MTR SF) provide States and non-State stakeholders the opportunity to engage in a moderated exchange and discussion to:

    • take stock of progress in implementing the framework since adoption,
    • examine changes in context and new emerging issues since 2015, and those expected in the period to 2030
    • examine renovations to risk governance and risk management that can accelerate and amplify actions pursuing the achievement of the outcome and goal of the Sendai Framework, and risk-informed regenerative and sustainable development.

    The MTR SF Plenaries form a central part of the consultations which will inform a report on the MTR SF, that will guide a High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the MTR SF (HLM) in New York on 18 and 19 May 2023.

    The HLM will adopt a concise and action-oriented political declaration to renew commitment and accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework which can inform the quadrennial review of the SDGs at the ECOSOC High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July of 2023; the SDGs Summit and the UN Secretary General’s Summit of the Future, at the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly in September 2023; and COP28 in November 2023.

    The three MTR SF Plenaries – each with a thematic focus – will take place over two days in hybrid format and inform the outcome of the Global Platform 2022. Presided over by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the host Government, MTR SF Plenary sessions are open to all registered participants of the Global Platform 2022.

    Summary of MTR SF Plenary 2
     

    This Plenary will speak to the multi-hazard, systemic nature of risk with which governments, the private sector and other stakeholders must contend if the outcomes and goals of the Sendai Framework, the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement – among other frameworks, conventions and agreements – are to be realised.

    Through the lens of Paragraph 15 of the Sendai Framework, which makes clear the imperative to take measures to better understand, govern and manage risk in all its dimensions – whether environmental, biological or technological, and well beyond a focus on natural hazards – the Plenary will explore measures taken, and measures required to realise this scope in policy objective at all scales and in all domains.

    The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, as well as inter alia degrading marine ecosystems, rising morbidity and mortality due to air pollution, water scarcity or armed conflict, demonstrate that governments are critically under-prepared to tackle the systemic nature of risk and the cascading impacts of of environmental, economic, and political crises. Such impacts are contributing to a steady decline in national wealth – not least among the LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS where fiscal space is constrained, and debt burden is growing.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has proved a timely reminder of the increasingly interconnected and interdependent nature of socio-ecological and technological systems that we inhabit. It is a warning, of how our decisions, our actions and inactions have consequences that cascade through sectors, geographies, scales and time; at unprecedented speed and magnitude.

    It also shows how societies and communities are not only interconnected globally through political, economic and social systems, but also through the earth’s biophysical life-support systems (ecosystems), the built environment, and increasingly through the digital world (the infrastructure for which extends into outer space).

    While this constantly evolving situation exacerbates common vulnerabilities, it also creates opportunities for collective action, including through meaningful engagement of communities and constituencies. This situation has highlighted the urgency to employ the full scope of Paragraph 15 in how we assess risk, how risk is governed and policy determined, in how risk management approaches and methods can be effective in building resilience for societal development and resilience synchronised with, inter alia, the biosphere, the built environment and rapid changes in technology.

    Context
     

    The COVID-19 pandemic and the converging discourse on climate resilience has validated the decision of States and non-State actors to include a more comprehensive framing of risk in the Sendai Framework – the scope of which includes man-made (or human-induced) hazards and risks, in addition to natural hazards. The Framework emphasises existing realities of inter alia the anthropogenic drivers of risk creation and propagation, and places human behaviour and choice at the centre of risk reduction.

    While still insufficiently addressed, this is contributing to a wider integration of risk reduction perspectives in global, regional and national policies that intersect with, among others, environment, natural resource management and biodiversity, and initial deliberations on reimagining health systems policy. However, and despite existing or growing knowledge of such threats, exposure to imminent and emerging hazards and risks are often disregarded within disaster risk reduction approaches, which often remain limited to natural (and to some extent, more recently biological) hazards, and blind to the full range of global catastrophic or existential risk scenarios.

    It is imperative to avoid over-reliance on linear and simplistic models of framing when shaping policy frameworks and interventions to deal with the broadened scope of risks and hazards, instead incorporating systems-based approaches that better account for interlinkages, overlaps, trade-offs, and tipping points.

    Left unaddressed, these interactions can create new risks, and entrench and amplify existing risks. While trying to address the interconnected and systemic nature of risk, it is essential to meaningfully capture local processes and perspectives of understanding risk and the lived experiences of communities.

    This leads to the discussions about coherence in understanding and redressing risk across various frameworks and agreements that address different but linked issues. As highlighted in the UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2019 (GAR 2019)[1], a risk-based discourse can be the connecting tissue between all agendas, including for example the 2030 Agenda and Addis Ababa Action Agenda for Financing for Development, the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Agreement, the Global Compact for Migration, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the forward-looking disposition of Our Common Agenda

     Broadening the Conversation
     

    GAR 2019[1] stressed that extreme changes in ecological and social systems are happening now, across multiple dimensions and scales more quickly than previously thought.

    The Global Environmental Outlook 6[2] report highlights that the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution has endangered the ecological foundations of human society and the natural systems that support other species and provide invaluable ecosystem services, while at the same time their linkages result in cascading risks that compromise the possibility of progress against most, if not all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

    In addition, the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 (GSDR)[3] stresses the need to transform key areas of human activity, which could otherwise lead to systems failure (including in respect of planetary boundaries, food, energy, consumption and production, and continuing maladaptive development in urban spaces) and increase resilience to economic shocks and disasters caused by natural and man-made hazards, through active implementation of the Sendai Framework.

    It further stresses the fundamental and urgent need to change the perception of the relationship between people and nature from humans and nature, to humans as part of nature. Further, without a significant reduction in inequalities between and within countries, any progress of the last two decades risks being undone.

    Finally, the Our Common Agenda report[4] highlights the need to do things radically differently in order to avoid existential and catastrophic risks created as a result of human activity.

    These messages are clear: we must move beyond incrementalism; we must act systemically and now. This includes creating the conditions for a shift in perceptions to enable a better understanding of the systemic nature of risk (as explored in GAR 2022).
     

     Guiding Questions

    1. What progress has been observed since 2015 in addressing the full scope of hazards and risks of the Sendai Framework in:
      • Evolving risk assessment?
      • Renovations to risk governance (at the national, regional and global levels)?
      • Innovations in method and approach in contending with the full scope of hazards and risks?
    2. What types of risks and hazards are excluded from the contemporary policies aimed at reducing risk and building resilience? Give specific examples.
    3. What steps can be taken to include biological, environmental and technological hazards and risks in risk-informed sustainable and regenerative development?
    4. What types of institutional arrangements can be put in place at the global, regional and national levels to operationalise policy and action frameworks that align with the full scope of hazards and risks of the Sendai Framework?
    5. What tools and capacities must national governments be equipped with to help them expand the scope of their work?
    Conference content type
    Conference session
    Onsite Accessibility
    On
    Contact
    Marc Gordon , Senior Coordinator gordon6@un.org, Momoko Nishikawa momoko.nishikawa@un.org, Sofia Palli palli@un.org, MTR SF email midtermreviewsf@un.org
    Display on agenda
    Yes
    Time zone
    Asia/Makassar
    Participation
    Interpretation (Language)
    Primary floor language
    Room/Location
    Nusa Dua Hall
    BNDCC 1-Ground Floor
    Session recording
    Conference event type
    Speakers

    Keynote speaker

    • H.E. Puan Maharani Nakshatra Kusyala Devi, Speaker, People's Representative Council, Indonesia

    Co-chairs

    • Dwikorita Karnawati, Head of the Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics of the Republic of Indonesia (BMKG)
    • Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction
    Learn more

    Concept Note of the MTR SF Plenary 2
    Technical Guidelines for the MTR SF Plenaries
    Pre-registration for interventions in the MTR SF Plenaries

    Related Links
     

    Concept Note of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030 (AR/ENG/FR/RU/SP)
    MTR SF Guidance for Member States (AR/ENG/FR/RU/SP)
    MTR SF Guidance for Stakeholders
    Supplementary Recommendations and Guidance for a gender-responsive MTR SF
    Literature Review of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (forthcoming)
    List of UNDRR MTR SF Focal Points by region
    Report of Preliminary Inputs of Stakeholders to the MTR SF 
    Website of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework

    Learn More about the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (MTR SF)

    With climate breakdown and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating the consequences of a failure to better understand and manage risk, and with the achievement of the goals and outcomes of the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in jeopardy, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) decided[1] to hold a “midterm review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030” (MTR SF).

    A retrospective and prospective stocktaking and review exercise, the MTR SF will assess progress made, examine challenges experienced in preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk, explore context shifts and emerging issues, and so identify renovations to risk governance and risk management able to contend with 21st century challenges. It will explore aspects of the integration of risk reduction into development, humanitarian, and climate action, allowing the re-examination and redress of our relationship with risk.

    Through consultations and review by States and other stakeholders, the MTR SF will “assess progress in integrating disaster risk reduction into policies, programmes and investments at all levels, identify good practice, gaps and challenges and accelerate the path to achieving the goal of the Sendai Framework and its seven global targets by 2030”[1].

    States recognised that “the Sendai Framework….provides guidance relevant to a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 and [….] to identify and address underlying drivers of disaster risk in a systemic manner”[2].

    The recommendations of States and non-State stakeholders seek to amplify and accelerate action in all sectors and at all scales through to 2030 and beyond, in pursuit of the outcomes and goals of inter alia the Sendai Framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, and risk-informed sustainable and regenerative development.

    As both a retrospective and prospective exercise, the MTR SF process aims to:

    • Prompt deep reflections in the COVID reality on how we understand the systemic nature of risk, our relationship with it, and how we can reduce disaster risk and loss.
    • Support integrated partnerships and actions that harness what we know and what we do, to shape how we choose, interact and decide.
    • Build collective and relational intelligence to establish new ways of knowing risk and new forms of collaboration that mean risk governance and management mechanisms and approaches are no longer overwhelmed.
    • Develop policy options, and new modalities of implementation through recommendations for Governments and other stakeholders to accelerate realisation of the goal and outcome of the Sendai Framework and risk-informed sustainable development.

    Guided by the Concept Note of the MTR SF, the Guidance for Member States, and the Guidance for Stakeholders, which can be accessed here. Consultations and review will generate critical analysis to assist countries and stakeholders develop recommendations for prioritised, accelerated and integrated international, national and local cooperation and action in the period 2023 to 2030, and to initiate nascent thinking on possible international arrangements for risk-informed sustainable development beyond 2030.

    Event bucket
    Official Programme

    Midterm Review Plenary 1: Resourcing risk-informed regenerative and sustainable development

    The Provisional List of Speakers for MTR SF Plenary 1

     

    This provisional list of speakers for the MTR SF Plenaries is based on expressions of interest received by the Secretariat.

    As multistakeholder sessions, the list of speakers in the MTR SF Plenaries will rotate among representatives of Member States, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), UN agencies, funds and programmes, and other stakeholders.

    As a large number of requests was received, invitations to speak will be adjusted according to protocol, time permitting, and will be made at the discretion of the Co-Chairs.

    In view of the limited time available, delegations that do not have the opportunity to speak can submit their interventions to the Secretariat (midtermreviewsf@un.org).

     

    Overview of the MTR SF Plenaries
     

    The Plenaries of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (MTR SF) provide States and non-State stakeholders the opportunity to engage in a moderated exchange and discussion to:

    • take stock of progress in implementing the framework since adoption,
    • examine changes in context and new emerging issues since 2015, and those expected in the period to 2030
    • examine renovations to risk governance and risk management that can accelerate and amplify actions pursuing the achievement of the outcome and goal of the Sendai Framework, and risk-informed regenerative and sustainable development.

    The MTR SF Plenaries form a central part of the consultations which will inform a report on the MTR SF, that will guide a High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the MTR SF (HLM) in New York on 18 and 19 May 2023.

    The HLM will adopt a concise and action-oriented political declaration to renew commitment and accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework which can inform the quadrennial review of the SDGs at the ECOSOC High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July of 2023; the SDGs Summit and the UN Secretary General’s Summit of the Future, at the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly in September 2023; and COP28 in November 2023.

    The three MTR SF Plenaries – each with a thematic focus – will take place over two days in hybrid format and inform the outcome of the Global Platform 2022. Presided over by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the host Government, MTR SF Plenary sessions are open to all registered participants of the Global Platform 2022.

    Summary of MTR SF Plenary 1

    This Plenary will convene a discussion on global financing frameworks and macro-economic governance, specifically in relation to addressing risk and building resilience. This includes addressing how risk features within the financial sector, the continued failure to sufficiently internalize[1] current and projected risks into private and public sector financing, as well as how finance can be made more widely accessible and affordable, to be better deployed to address risk and build resilience in society.

    Many aspects of the financial system, macro-economic policy, and development and climate finance are primary contributors to creating and perpetuating risks and hazards, posing potential existential threats to humans and the ecosystems on which we depend. While progress is observed in the enhanced inclusion of climate change adaptation as an environmental objective in the context of green financial products and services, concerns remain that investors often do not consider how their investment may be creating exposure and vulnerability of local communities, supply chains and ecosystems, ignoring or disassociating such investments from subsequent macro-economic implications.

    While the case for investing in prevention, risk reduction and resilience remains clear, the financial rationale for risk reduction for many hazards is limited. Factors like short-termism, regulatory capture, limited understanding and lack of inclusion in policy-making pose barriers. Mandates for multi-hazard risk analyses or disclosures are scarce and much greater political commitment is needed to remove or alleviate disincentives to resilience. This situation calls for a reform and realignment of the financial sector in line with addressing risk and building resilience, for which political commitment, public buy-in and support are critical enablers of all available policy options.

    Elements of this realignment include reimagining the fundamental relationship between the economy and the environment and society, and making progress on related universal standards, lexicon and taxonomy.

    National governments and national financing bodies can benefit from building capacity and understanding in this area to internalize current negative externalities from many economic activities. Demonstration of how national ministers, regulators and financial supervisors can incentivise or mandate a multi-hazard approach to risk reduction is needed.

    This must be supported with enhanced guidance on how to integrate disaster risk into procurement processes, accounting practices, as well as in international and national accounting standards. Similarly, guidance on alternative lending standards and collateral documentation for informal markets is critical.

    This session seeks to also strike links with the work being undertaken by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development (FfD), and the Financing for Development Follow-up Forum in relation to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

    Context

    The macroeconomic implications of realised risk (disasters) cannot be confined to a single sector or country, take for example the extraordinary worldwide socio-economic crisis caused by COVID-19. While the pandemic continues, the world continues on its halting road to recovery; which remains drastically uneven. The economic scarring caused by the pandemic is exacerbating “human vulnerability patterns shaped by past developments”[1]. Such vulnerabilities “are worsened by compounding and cascading risks and are socially differentiated”[2], leading to a sharply diverging world. The severe fiscal impacts of the crisis are triggering debt distress in a growing number of countries, severely limiting the ability of many countries to invest in recovery and resilience, and sustainable development in general.

    At the same time those countries with the capacity to continue to finance recovery are almost exclusively doing so in ways that are accelerating the creation of risk – as Johns Hopkins University observes less than 6% of G20 COVID stimulus spending is being assessed as compatible with risk-informed regenerative and sustainable development[3], and there is increasing evidence of how maladaptation “in some sectors and systems [is creating] long-term lock-in of vulnerability, exposure and risks that are difficult and costly to change”[1].

    In the Agreed Conclusions and Recommendations of the 2021 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development, Member States have already called for an urgent shift in the balance from investing in response to investing in prevention and in risk reduction. This is echoed in the Glasgow Pact which reiterates the urgency of scaling up finance to minimise and avert loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change in developing countries. Moreover, in his report on “Our Common Agenda”, the Secretary-General calls for a renewed approach to development that is grounded in strategic foresight and reducing risk for future generations.

    If the current risk-blind approach to macro-economic policy and development and finance persists, economic losses due to disasters will continue to increase. The lack of decisive action risks shrinking the already small window for transformative action, and may render the ‘decade of action’ a ‘lost decade’ placing sustainable development and resilient societies out of reach.

    Broadening the Conversation

    The focus of the MTR SF includes a prospective inquiry on how to better address risk and building resilience. In this context, and building on what we have learned and observed since adoption of the Framework in 2015, the discussion will highlight ways to understand and apply existing and emerging concepts in a manner that forwards the imperative to realize regenerative sustainable development.

    It is worth noting that due to the inherently interrelated and interdependent nature of risks and hazards, and the scope and scale of the financial system, this matter has now gone beyond the physical and political boundaries of any individual nation, to become a global anthropogenic phenomenon that involves all countries, with “irreversible changes….from the interaction of stressors and the occurrence of extreme events”[1] becoming increasingly frequent – as the recently published 6th Assessment Report of the IPCC notes.

    Such extremes are “surpassing the resilience of some ecological and human systems, and challenging the adaptation capacities of others, including impacts with irreversible consequences”[2]. With “vulnerable people and human systems, and climate sensitive species and ecosystems…..most at risk”[3], such changes may diminish or eliminate the possibilities for societal resilience and even render global financial and economic systems dysfunctional.
     

    Guiding Question

    1. What progress has been observed since 2015 in:
      1. Integrating multi-hazard risk reduction considerations within public and private investment, including development and climate finance?
      2. The development of tools, polices, and legislation to ensure risk reduction and prevention are included in investments in all asset classes?
    2. What in our current economic system continues to reward efforts to externalise risk and exploit living systems, and prevent or hinder sustainable consumption and production?
    3. How can learning since adoption of the Sendai Framework (the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement) in 2015 be applied to expand the scope of the discussion, pursue a comprehensive re-pricing of risk, and enable a more holistic approach to addressing risk and building resilience?
      1. How can risks that are currently being overlooked be better integrated into procurement processes, accounting practices and standards?
      2. How can more appropriate valuation approaches and pricing models be applied to the exploitation of agricultural activities and the exploitation of both natural resources and human labour by predominant economic actors?
    4. What instruments (including debt sustainability measures) are available to LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS to access resources, both domestically, and through the global financial system or the global multilateral system? How can existing debt and loan portfolios be better aligned with the Sendai Framework?
    5. As we seek new metrics beyond GDP, what are the risks and opportunities of ensuring that nature’s contributions to human health and wellbeing are treated as central in avoiding the creation of new risk and the management of existing risk?
      Conference content type
      Conference session
      Onsite Accessibility
      On
      Contact
      Marc Gordon , Senior Coordinator gordon6@un.org, Momoko Nishikawa momoko.nishikawa@un.org, Sofia Palli palli@un.org, MTR SF email midtermreviewsf@un.org
      Accessibility
      Display on agenda
      Yes
      Time zone
      Asia/Makassar
      Participation
      Interpretation (Language)
      Primary floor language
      Room/Location
      Nusa Dua Hall
      BNDCC 1-Ground Floor
      Session recording
      Conference event type
      Speakers

      Keynote Speaker

      • H.E. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Finance, Indonesia

      Co-chairs

      • H.E. Suharyanto, Minister of National Disaster Management Authority of the Republic of Indonesia (BNPB)
      • Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction
      Learn more

      Concept Note of the MTR SF Plenary 1
      Technical Guidelines for the MTR SF Plenaries
      Pre-registration for interventions in the MTR SF Plenaries
       

      Related Documents

      Concept Note of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030 (AR/ENG/FR/RU/SP)
      MTR SF Guidance for Member States (AR/ENG/FR/RU/SP)
      MTR SF Guidance for Stakeholders

      Supplementary Recommendations and Guidance for a gender-responsive MTR SF
      Literature Review of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (forthcoming)
      Template for Voluntary National Reports of the MTR SF
      Report of Preliminary Inputs of Stakeholders to the MTR SF 
      List of UNDRR MTR SF Focal Points by region
      Website of the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework

      Learn More about the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (MTR SF)

      With climate breakdown and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating the consequences of a failure to better understand and manage risk, and with the achievement of the goals and outcomes of the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in jeopardy, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) decided[1] to hold a “midterm review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030” (MTR SF).

      A retrospective and prospective stocktaking and review exercise, the MTR SF will assess progress made, examine challenges experienced in preventing new and reducing existing disaster risk, explore context shifts and emerging issues, and so identify renovations to risk governance and risk management able to contend with 21st century challenges. It will explore aspects of the integration of risk reduction into development, humanitarian, and climate action, allowing the re-examination and redress of our relationship with risk.

      Through consultations and review by States and other stakeholders, the MTR SF will “assess progress in integrating disaster risk reduction into policies, programmes and investments at all levels, identify good practice, gaps and challenges and accelerate the path to achieving the goal of the Sendai Framework and its seven global targets by 2030”[2].

      States recognised that “the Sendai Framework….provides guidance relevant to a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 and [….] to identify and address underlying drivers of disaster risk in a systemic manner”[3].

      The recommendations of States and non-State stakeholders seek to amplify and accelerate action in all sectors and at all scales through to 2030 and beyond, in pursuit of the outcomes and goals of inter alia the Sendai Framework, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, and risk-informed sustainable and regenerative development.

      As both a retrospective and prospective exercise, the MTR SF process aims to:

      • Prompt deep reflections in the COVID reality on how we understand the systemic nature of risk, our relationship with it, and how we can reduce disaster risk and loss.
      • Support integrated partnerships and actions that harness what we know and what we do, to shape how we choose, interact and decide.
      • Build collective and relational intelligence to establish new ways of knowing risk and new forms of collaboration that mean risk governance and management mechanisms and approaches are no longer overwhelmed.
      • Develop policy options, and new modalities of implementation through recommendations for Governments and other stakeholders to accelerate realisation of the goal and outcome of the Sendai Framework and risk-informed sustainable development.

      Guided by the Concept Note of the MTR SF, the Guidance for Member States, and the Guidance for Stakeholders, which can be accessed here. Consultations and review will generate critical analysis to assist countries and stakeholders develop recommendations for prioritised, accelerated and integrated international, national and local cooperation and action in the period 2023 to 2030, and to initiate nascent thinking on possible international arrangements for risk-informed sustainable development beyond 2030.

      Event bucket
      Official Programme