Official Statement of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Government of Indonesia for hosting the GP 2022 and congratulate UNDRR for the successful organization of the event.

JICA, as an implementing organization for Japan’s official development assistance, works closely with developing countries to support the government’s role in protecting their citizens and development gains from disasters in pursuit of broader wellbeing and prosperity of nations through the vision of human security and sustainable development.

From the inception of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) to 2020, JICA has provided technical assistance ( USD 370 million), grants ( USD 883 million) and loans ( USD 7.2 billion) to promote DRR in developing countries. The support entails enhancing the capacity for hazard monitoring and risk assessment; designing master plans and regulatory frameworks; building DRR infrastructure and resilient social infrastructure; and training a cadre of DRR experts and leaders (120,000 over the five years from 2015) to promote pre-disaster investment.

Over time, JICA has consistently urged our partner countries to demonstrate increases in pre-disaster investment in DRR. For example, in the Philippines, the government’s flood mitigation measures helped minimize the impact of the Typhoon Ulysses in 2020 by reducing inundation and economic damage in metropolitan Manila by 85%. This was the outcome of the Government of the Philippines’s risk reduction investment since the 1970s that continued hand in hand with economic development.

In Peru, when the 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit northern part of the country in November 2021, the local authority determined the epicenter and generated critical and reliable earthquake information for a timely public response to minimize the disaster impact. This shows steady progress in DRR investment made by the country over time since the catastrophic earthquake in the 1970s (Mw7.7, 6000 casualties).

The cases of the Philippines and Peru indicate that DRR actions are not an expense but an investment that can yield a remarkable impact over many years. We believe that the countries observing those outcomes have a continued strong individual and institutional leadership combined with the plans and strategies backed by scientific evidence and budget to implement the most impactful risk reduction measures. JICA will continue to support incremental and steady advancement disaster risk reduction in our partner countries.

As we look towards the remaining period of implementation of the SFDRR, JICA sees the following points of acceleration where we aim to provide increased support in partnership with the partner countries and broader communities of DRR.

• Quality strategies and plans: We cannot over-emphasize the necessity and the importance of a high-quality and impactful DRR strategy and plans with robust scientific evidence and prioritization. Quality DRR strategies and plans can effectively translate into the allocation of financial resources and implementation of the highest-priority mitigation measures against the imminent hazard specific to countries and localities. We should further expedite implementation of DRR strategies, and review or even overhaul them so that they would surely accelerate implementation.
• Importance of indicators that accelerate proactive investment in risk reduction: There are not properly designed indicators to urge the real effective pre-disaster investment in DRR. To accelerate DRR investment, JICA advocates for having the indicators that objectively suggest how much the exposure to imminent hazards have been reduced through particular measures in natural scientific terms. This would guide countries by enabling them to objectively understand the status of risk, and to decide the most effective investment in risk reduction to achieve a higher-level impact.

Under the newly developed organizational strategy, Global Agenda for Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction, JICA renews its commitment to expand our international cooperation in DRR with the vision to achieve a downward trend in the economic loss and damage. Our cooperation is channeled through the Sendai Cooperation Initiative for Disaster Risk Reduction Phase II (2020-2024), where technical assistance of USD 110.7 million, grants of USD 124 million, and loans of USD 3.3 billion are planned.

The resources will be allocated to the following three key clusters of DRR actions:

1. Physical/structural risk mitigation infrastructures that provide broader protection of people and national development against low-intensity and high-frequency hazards;
2. Stronger overall DRR governance, including the institutional capacity for hazard monitoring and risk assessment; and
3. Post-disaster resilient recovery through which the above two cluster priorities are implemented.

All of the targeted DRR actions are implemented to reduce the risk of the anticipated future disaster, and priorities are given to urban and urbanizing cities with a high concentration of population and economic assets.

Last but not least, addressing ‘systemic risk’ requires that JICA takes a whole-of-the-agency effort. While our DRR cooperation introduced above offers specific technical support to mitigate the exposures to various natural hazards, we will work closely with other sectoral units within JICA such as environment, climate change, water resources management, urban development, and social development to address the vulnerability of the society through a broader development cooperation program in view of addressing cascading risks.