Dr. Bernard Manyena will be one of the keynote speakers at the workshop that will contribute to the preparations for the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction that will be held in Sendai, Japan on 14-18th March, 2015. This involves a review of the current Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 (HFA), which was signed by 168 countries in Kobe, Japan in 2005.
Dr Manyena will argue that unless conceptual flaws and policy, institutional and investment fragmentation are addressed the post-HFA is most likely to repeat and reinforce the failures of its predecessor. While the mortality risk has reduced during the subsistence of the HFA, the economic losses continued to rise over the same period. Underlying the contradictions is the resilience discourse, which needs translation into policy and practice by clearly identifying the basic capacities that need targeting, the guiding principles, and the nature of outcomes, including how these should be measured.
Unpacking resilience is not an end in itself. Rather, this should be supported by a broad shift of emphasis towards the notion that risk is endogenously rather than exogenously created. This recognition is likely to foster a shift from a response to an embedded disaster risk reduction (DRR) framework that integrates DRR, sustainable development and climate change adaptation into a single framework. In many ways, although this shift is also likely to reduce siloisation of DRR governance, clear commitments to invest in DRR both from local and international financial institutions should be based on equity and supported by tools for tracking and accounting for such investments.