The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Statement to the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2022

Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

My name is Windi Arini, and I’m a programme officer at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI). I will be reading this statement on behalf of the Institute.

RWI is an independent academic institution founded in 1984 and based in Lund, Sweden. We combine evidence-based human rights research with direct engagement, in close collaboration with our partners, to realise human rights for all.RWI operates in six offices, including one in Jakarta, where our Regional Asia and the Pacific office is based.

Our work seeks to leverage the strengths of international human rights law in a multi-level, multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral perspective, in line with the post-2015 development agenda.These will be anchored in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the New Urban Agenda. To this end, RWI builds networks with various actors, such as, universities, civil societies, national and local governments, the judiciary, and national human rights institutions, to strengthen the human rights perspective in their decisions on land use planning and sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation, amongst others.

This intervention focuses on the first guiding question for the session. RWI’s contribution highlights that guiding principle 19(c) of the Sendai Framework has promoted transformational change by endorsing a human rights-based approach to disaster risk reduction.

To demonstrate the relevance of this provision, here are some examples of how RWI has been integrating human rights perspectives in this context.

Three years since the GP2019 in Geneva, RWI has continued leveraging its research capacity to build knowledge and awareness of the interlinkages between human rights, climate change, disasters, and displacement. In 2020, RWI published insights from a regional thematic study on Internal Displacement in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific.This study brought together researchers from ten countries across Asia and the Pacific to examine the relationship between national-level law and policy relating to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction,and local-level protection of people from and during disaster-related displacement. This research was underpinned by a systematic review of key international standards and guidelines relating to displacement in disasters and climate change that RWI published in 2019.

RWI, in collaboration with the Asia Disaster Preparedness Center, the Stockholm Environment Institute(SEI), and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, is implementing the five-year program on Building Resilience through inclusive and climate-adaptive Disaster Risk reduction in Asia-Pacific (BRDR 2018-2022). A notable output from this project is the Framework for Integrating Rights and Equality (FIRE) presented at the Ignite Stage here at GP2022. FIRE consists of six dimensions and is intended as a guiding framework for decision-makers at national, sub-national and local levels to use in developing and implementing laws, policies, procedures, and practices related to DRR and climate resilience.

In another partnership with the SEI, RWI has launched a research initiative on integrating a rights-based approach to climate change adaptation, which includes a recently published discussion brief on pathways to a just and fair adaptation, and a research paper on human rights in the process of adaptation planning. This initiative will culminate in a handbook that will guide national and local actors on incorporating human rights int heir adaptation planning and implementation.

RWI has also led a series of initiatives to translate these key research outputs into practice through action-oriented blended learning courses (BLC) that promote rights-based and gender equal approaches to various thematic issues. One example is the BLC on human rights and gender-based approaches to displacement in disaster and climate change that RWI co-developed with its university partners in Asia. Some outcomes of this course include increased cooperation between academia and state organisations working on disaster management, including the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), Indonesia, and the IndonesianNational Disaster Management Authorities (BNPB). Another outcome is the incorporation of human rights perspectives in the UGM’s Graduate School Programme on Disaster Management’s course plans and teaching modules. Finally, the University of Indonesia and Ateneo de Manila University have delivered certified courses that built on the topics and content of the BLC, targeting key stakeholders in their countries, including government officials at both national and sub-national levels, NGOs, and other practitioners.

Similarly, local governments across Asia have taken steps toward integrating human rights into local policy, both in relation to, and independently of, their participation in the regional courses that RWI organises together with the Metropolitan city of Gwangju and UCLG ASPAC. Policy changes were made in the framework of several participants’ course projects. For instance, the city of Makati integrated human rights considerations into their Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan. Likewise, the city of Calamba focused on measures to ensure the inclusion of persons with disabilities in their Enhanced Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan.

RWI is looking forward to furthering collaboration towards achieving the Sendai Framework targets, informed by a human rights-based approach.

Thank you.