UN Disaster Risk Reduction Report 2022
Executive summary
Link to full report is https://www.undrr.org/publication/global-assessment-report-disaster-risk-reduction-2022
The central question for this Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022 (GAR2022) is how governance systems can evolve to better address the systemic risks of the future. In today’s crowded and interconnected world, disaster impacts increasingly cascade across geographies and sectors, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
pandemic and climate change are rapidly making clear. Despite progress, risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. Disasters, economic loss and the underlying vulnerabilities that drive risk, such as poverty and inequality, are increasing just as ecosystems and biospheres are at risk of collapse.
Global systems are becoming more connected and therefore more vulnerable in an uncertain risk landscape. Such systems include ecologies, food systems, supply chains, economies and social services. COVID-19 spread quickly and relentlessly into every corner of the world, and global risks like climate change are having major impacts in
every locality. Indirect, cascading impacts can also be significant. For example, many countries felt the negative economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic months before ever registering a single case of the disease. Without increased action to build resilience to systemic risk, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals cannot be achieved.
GAR2022 highlights that:
● The climate emergency and the systemic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic point to a new reality.
● Understanding and reducing risk in a world of uncertainty is fundamental to achieving genuinely sustainable development.
● The best defence against future shocks is to transform systems now, to build resilience by addressing climate change and to reduce the vulnerability, exposure and inequality that drive disasters.
GAR2022 explores how, around the world, structures are evolving to better address systemic risks. In the face of accelerating climate change impacts, doing more of the same will not be enough. However, action is possible. This report shows how governance systems can evolve to reflect the interconnected value of people, the planet and prosperity. It outlines how actions such as changing what is measured to account for factors such as sustainability, the value of ecosystems and future climate change impacts can have a powerful effect, including unmasking dangerous imbalances in existing systems. Investment in understanding risk is the foundation for sustainable development. However,
this needs to link to a reworking of financial and governance systems to account for the real costs of current actions. Without this, financial balance sheets and governance decision-making will remain fragmented, and will be rendered increasingly inaccurate and ineffective.
The report also explores how designing systems to work with, not against, the way human minds make decisions can support accelerated action. Innate biases and mental short cuts can make people’s thinking myopic, or prone to inertia, oversimplification or herding when making decisions around risk. This helps explain why people, and the institutions they work for, can resist making good decisions about risk, even in the face of clear scientific data. These biases are particularly likely to kick in when risks are newly felt, and therefore unfamiliar, as is the case with many systemic risks such as climate change or a pandemic.
Reframing risk information, policies and products to present expert risk understanding differently can help overcome this hurdle. Designing in consultation with affected populations, building on existing expertise and local knowledge, and leveraging technology to help support better communication and dialogue around risk can increase the
effectiveness and acceptance of change.
Building on innovations in modelling systemic financial crises, GAR2022 outlines how similar methods are now being applied to better understand the cascading, cross-sectoral impacts of systemic risk on sustainable development. It shows how both developed and developing countries are innovating to improve analytics. Emerging methods better depict impacts in key systems like food, infrastructure and supply chains, which cascade across sectors and geographies. These further drive social impacts such as increased inequality,
migration and conflict.
These technological advances are powerful tools in accelerating risk understanding. However, in a world of certain uncertainty, no model can accurately predict what is a fundamentally unpredictable future. Science can help identify positive pathways, test options and find weak points. But it cannot predict across the infinite variables of a complex
world. GAR2022 therefore highlights examples where human experience and global models are coming together to apply data more effectively to support better decision-making around risk. Local food security projects in Kenya are using state-of-the-art climate information to discuss options for resilient agriculture with local partners. A “deep demonstration approach” is being applied in Viet Nam where innovators and governments are working together to co-design a green circular economy and better understand and address systemic risk. Examples given from around the world highlight how options exist to better leverage technology, enhance participation, and increase the use of local and indigenous knowledge to create the agile flexible systems necessary to build resilience in today’s complex world.
To accelerate essential risk reduction and resilience building, GAR2022 calls for action to:
1. Measure what we value.
2. Design systems to factor in how human minds make decisions about risk.
3. Reconfigure governance and financial systems to work across silos and design in consultation with affected people.
As climate change impacts gather pace, the baseline for how future generations will view inaction is clear.
The time to act is now.
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