Work starts on Sendai indicators

Source(s): United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
Caption: The head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, and the Chair of the Working Group on the Sendai Framework Indicators, Ambassador Wayne McCook of Jamaica (Photo: UNISDR)

Caption: The head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, and the Chair of the Working Group on the Sendai Framework Indicators, Ambassador Wayne McCook of Jamaica (Photo: UNISDR)

GENEVA, September 29, 2014 - UN member States met today for the first time to discuss indicators to measure global progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 which was adopted in March at the Third UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan.

The first session was dominated by discussions on updating the existing DRR terminology and the inclusion of new terms generated by the text of the Sendai Framework and a debate on the experts group report on indicators for measuring the seven targets with particular focus on mortality and affected persons, targets (a) and (b) respectively.

Ambassador Wayne McCook of Jamaica took the chair and recalled that “The Open-ended intergovernmental expert working groups on indicators and terminology relating to disaster risk reduction” (OEWG), was established at the request of the UN General Assembly in June to develop indicators and agree on terminology for the Sendai Framework, coherent with the SDG indicators development group.

He stated that what goes into the working group is to be decided by Member States, and the only indicators to be put forward will be the ones decided by the OEWG. Ambassador McCook said he would be available for discussions with stakeholder groups as the sessions progressed.

The head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlström, said the effort to promote a common understanding of DRR terminology goes back to July 2002 and the UNISDR publication “Living With Risk: A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives.

A revised terminology was published in 2009 and further work has been carried out since 2014 by the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group and its member, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC).

Since then work had been done on identifying the most commonly used of the 53 terms in the 2009 UNISDR terminology list and these were: Risk, Disaster, Response, Capacity, Hazard, Vulnerability, Mitigation, Preparedness and Prevention. Complementary analysis indicated that Climate Change, Adaptation and Resilience have growing usage.

Participants were referred to background technical papers on terminology and indicators. Out of 87 terms in the terminology background document, 53 are corresponding to existing terminology terms, and 34 new terms have been taken out of Sendai Framework. The papers are availabl at: http://www.preventionweb.net/events/view/45467.

There was a wide ranging discussion on indicators in the afternoon with a focus on target (a): “substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030, aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020-2030 compared to the period 2005-2015.”

UNISDR’s coordinator of the Global Assessment Report for Disaster Risk Reduction, Andrew Maskrey, opened the discussion on the use of indicators drawing attention to the expert view that a well-defined list of hazards be agreed upon under each of the categories defined in the Sendai Framework.

National disaster loss databases currently collect information mainly on disasters associated with natural hazards and this will have to be expanded to take account of the fact that the Sendai Framework covers “natural or man-made hazards as well as related environmental, technological and biological hazards.”

Mr. Maskrey said that it was the opinion of the expert group that the measurement of trends will require the application of an appropriate statistical normalization technique to address the issue created by a small number of intense disaster events such as the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the Haitian earthquake in 2010 which account for a high proportion of disaster mortality.

Ambassador McCook drew attention to the issue of capacity to collect data on mortality and numbers of people affected in targets (a) and (b) respectively.

The session resumes on Wednesday at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) with further discussion on indicators to measure global progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework and can be followed live on the web at: http://www.preventionweb.net/drr-framework/open-ended-working-group/

 

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