Central America steps up for Sendai Framework

PANAMA CITY, 17 June 2015 – Central American countries are driving forward to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a global pact which focuses strongly on regional cooperation and the incorporation of integrated disaster risk management within existing national development priorities and policies.

Home to more than 43 million people, Central America is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions of the world. Losses from natural hazards such as hurricanes and landslides can all too easily undermine its efforts to reduce poverty and inequality, and threaten regional and national effort to achieve sustainable development, as well as triggering other risks associated with migration, violence and insecurity.

The Sendai Framework, which was adopted by the international community in March and will guide risk reduction until 2030, calls for an all-encompassing approach to the threat of disasters. The aim is to ensure that risk-reduction efforts in one area do not end up increasing risk elsewhere, and, to ensure maximum impact of policies, that all members of society are both informed and involved. The overall goal is to reduce deaths and injuries, the numbers of people affected and economic losses arising from disasters.

Central American governments and the disaster risk reduction community will gather in El Salvador on 18-19 June for the third Consultative Forum of the Central American Policy for Integrated Risk Management (PCGIR), a key event that will help assess best practice and set the tone for the future. Underlining the importance of the event, it will be opened by the country's head of state, President Salvador Sanchez Ceren. Other high-level participants will include UNISDR’s head, Ms. Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The El Salvador meeting is part of a wider process which in May and earlier this month saw a trio of preliminary meetings take place in individual countries, helping assess the way forward since the adoption of the Sendai Framework at the World Conference in Japan. The first national meeting was held on 21- 22 May in Honduras, followed by similar events on 1-2 June in Guatemala, 4-5 June in Panama and 8-9 June in Costa Rica. All events were led by the National Disaster Risk Management System of Central America.

“One of the most important challenges is to include the issue of human rights throughout the work of risk management, starting with the inclusion of all groups in society. He also stressed that the documents generated by such meetings must be transformed into concrete opportunities for the most vulnerable, said Mr. Ivan Brenes, President of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), during the Costa Rica event.

Mr. Roy Barboza, Executive Secretary of the Central America Coordination Centre for Natural Disasters Prevention (CEPREDENAC), meanwhile highlighted the importance of such events as source of inputs to strengthen a regional vision of disaster risk management, as promoted by the PCGIR and in coherence with the Sendai Framework.

The events were conducted through coordination between UNISDR, CEPREDENAC, the UN Development Programme , partners of the European Union’s DIPECHO Action Plan 2014-2015, with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

A separate event held in Colombia on 11 June also spotlighted the links between sustainable development and disaster risk management, as UNISDR launched the Spanish-language version of its flagship Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 (GAR).

The GAR is a biannual publication that includes a thorough review of the impact of disasters and provides strategic policy guidance to countries and the international community in the field of integrated risk management, thus contributing to strengthening community resilience and the implementation of the Sendai Framework.

“The Americas is known as one of the regions which has rapidly advanced the issue of risk management in the recent years. However, it is also is one of the most exposed and vulnerable regions in the world,” said Mr. Ricardo Mena, Head of UNISDR’s Regional Office of the Americas.

“In the region and in the world, the economic losses from disasters are increasing steadily, which is a wake-up call for our decision makers to prioritize the issue of risk management and invest more to prevent an even greater negative impact on the future,” he added.