Read this section to learn more about recovery strategies that are resilient and inclusive and reduce risk and vulnerability to future shocks, ensuring you come prepared to the session. 

Where do we stand? 
Key challenges include: 

• Unprecedented debt accumulation amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic  
• Ongoing vicious cycle of disaster-response-recover-repeat due to lack of ex ante investment in resilience 
• Lack of risk-informed decision-making  
• Ongoing need to address the unequal distribution of impacts on countries and priority sectors 

At the same time, there are opportunities which could put us on the path to sustainability and resilience. These include: 

• Identification of priority recovery actions which prevent the creation of new risks and reduce existing risks 
• Development of recovery strategies that are resilient and inclusive 
• Set out responsibilities and liabilities of national governments, financing bodies and the private sector, to manage the negative externalities arising from policy and investment decisions that are not risk-informed 
• Improve transparency in recovery spending and accountability of all involved stakeholders to ensure that recovery and stimulus packages are inclusive, and account for resilience 

Session guiding questions 

• What are some of the key enablers of resilient recovery?  
• Are there any applicable examples of good practices?  
• What is needed to ensure that public sector, civil society, and private sector investments in recovery are forward-looking and take into account resilience and future risks?  
• What actions can be taken to embed disaster risk reduction and resilience into national and local planning for recovery?  How do we ensure that the recovery actions are co-designed with the communities at risk? 
• What policies and incentives should be put in place to meaningfully engage the investment, banking, and insurance sectors and other important stakeholders in the private sector in financing recovery that builds resilience? 
• How can specific economic sectors be supported to better tackle future shocks?  

Read this section to learn more about the topic of adaptive social protection, ensuring you come prepared to the session.  

Where do we stand?

Building resilience means addressing the root causes of vulnerability, including social exclusion and discrimination, lack of assets, skills, and access to resources, services, and opportunities. A greater emphasis is being placed on the role that social protection can play in supporting individuals, households, and communities to reduce vulnerability and prepare for shocks. Yet some progress challenges remain including: 

• Those left uncovered by social protection systems are often the most marginalised: Only 46.9 percent of the global population are effectively covered by at least one social protection benefit.
• Many social protection systems still are not shock responsive and are not adequately adaptable to anticipate and prevent shocks from transforming into crises. 
• There is still limited evidence around the effectiveness of adaptive social protection systems to reduce inequalities and deliver protection to those most vulnerable to climate and disaster impacts. 

At the same time, adaptive social protection systems are a promising approach to increase the resilience of people and societies, even when they face multiple and interlinked risks. Specifically, adaptive social protection systems can do this by: 

• Combining different sectoral approaches and leveraging capacities across government, non-government and humanitarian actors to help to manage risk. 
• Focusing on the most vulnerable to disasters when expanding coverage. 
• Prepositioning risk financing to ensure funding is readily available.  
• Investing in systems and planning to support responsive programming after a shock. 

Session guiding questions  

• How can social protection systems be further leveraged to ensure implementation of the Sendai Framework is inclusive and leaves no one behind? 
• How do the existing efforts on adaptive social protection contribute to the broader DRR agenda and to what extent are DRR stakeholders engaged with strengthening social protection systems? 
• How is power devolving to ensure those who have been left behind in the progress made towards the achievement of the Sendai targets are supported and empowered to lead DRR efforts? 

Read More:

• Five facts on Adaptive Social Protection
• Adaptive Social Protection micro course

Read more on risk-informed investments and why they are important to reduce disaster risk.  

Where do we stand?  

Investing in disaster risk reduction (DRR) is a precondition for developing sustainably in a rapidly changing climate. DRR investments can be achieved and make good financial sense. Yet, they are not carried out to the extent required. Public and private investment decisions typically: 

• Don’t consider how an investment may be creating disaster risk in terms of exposure and vulnerability at multiple levels, including national, local, and landscape. 
• Don’t include costs of disasters and benefits of risk mitigation in financial modeling and on balance sheets. Thus, such costs and benefits remain either external to, or are undisclosed in, private and financial sector investment decision-making. 
• Treat disaster and climate risks as temporally remote, limited, uncertain, and/or unquantifiable at the level of an individual project and, thus, externalize them. 

Though action is lagging, the combined effect of COVID-19 and increasing disaster risk from the climate emergency, provide todays leaders, investors, and decision makers with a unique opportunity to invest in public and private funds in a resilient way for a green, sustainable future. 

To this end, governments should endeavor to make all financial investments resilient to disasters and to ensure that they do not create new risks. At the same time, the private and financial sector also need to lead and foster risk-informed business behaviors that include reporting and disclosure of material, long-term sustainability risks, as well as impact reporting on how companies are contributing to resilience aligned with the Sendai Framework, Paris Climate Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.

Session guiding questions  

• How can disaster and climate risk reduction measures be better embedded into public and private investments? 
• What are key obstacles/barriers to reducing disaster risk in public and private investments and how can they be overcome? 
• What are examples of policies, programs, measures that resulted in investments that have successfully integrated risk reduction measures? 
• What was your/your institutions’ decision-making process that led to a risk-informed investment? Provide examples of the competencies, capacities and tipping-points that catalyzed and led to action.  
• How can different stakeholders (regulators, private investors, policy makers, civil society, academia, intergovernmental organizations, etc.) catalyze action to better align public and private investment strategies, operations and activities with the Sendai Framework? 
• What are the unique challenges of LDCs and SIDS in embedding disaster and climate risk in public and private investments and how can these be addressed?