Cooperation Across Borders for Strengthened Capacity and Action (Target F)

In today’s interconnected world, risk is increasingly systemic, and disaster impacts cascade across boundaries. Strengthened risk governance and cooperation across borders is subsequently critical to manage and reduce disaster risk. Data shows that international financing for disaster response and recovery far outweigh financing for prevention and risk reduction. While increased official development assistance for disaster risk reduction (DRR) is certainly needed, international cooperation for DRR must go beyond funding to include support for capacity building as well as transfer and exchange of science, technology, and innovation. Cooperation must also go beyond traditional development assistance through traditional partners to cross-border networking between civil society organizations, academic institutions, and experts working on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. 
This session will examine means to strengthen cross border cooperation for disaster risk reduction, and specifically across non-traditional actors and mechanisms. 

Session objectives 

  • Share examples of successful South-South and triangular partnerships and transboundary cooperation initiatives for DRR that can be scaled up or replicated.   
  • Highlight means to strengthen international cooperation for DRR and the integration of DRR into financing for sustainable development and climate action. 
  • Consider the transfer and exchange of science, technology, and innovation in DRR between countries, providing recommendations for scaling up collaboration between public, private, academic, and science and technology sectors. 
  • Synthesize key steps required to boost multi-stakeholder cross-border partnerships for DRR in the coming years and ahead of 2030. 

Moderator

  • Neeshad Shafi - Executive Director/ Stakeholder Engagement Manager, Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar/ Global Carbon Council

Speakers

  • Ken O'Flaherty - COP26 Regional Ambassador Asia-Pacific, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • Olaya Dotel - Vice-minister for International Cooperation, Dominican Republic
  • Cristelle Pratt - Assistant Secretary-General, Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States Secretariat, Environment & Climate Action
  • Nuraini Rahma Hanifa - Secretary-General, U-INSPIRE Alliance, National research and innovation agency
  • Heidi Schroderus-Fox - Acting High Representative, The United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States

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Learn more

Read this section to learn more about the potential of cross border cooperation for strengthened DRR capacity and action to ensure you come prepared to the session. 

Where do we stand? 

Challenges 

A mere 0.5% of the total amount of official development assistance between 2010 and 2019 was allocated to DRR. Moreover, only $5.5 billion was aimed at ex-ante risk reduction measures, compared to $119.8 billion spent on post-disaster response and recovery. Very few national development cooperation policies include disaster risk reduction. International development cooperation must become more risk-informed, given the increasingly complex risk landscape and the scope of resources and expertise required. A much broader range of experts and stakeholders must be engaged in cross-border collaboration for DRR. 

Opportunities 

Development cooperation can be a catalyst for disaster risk-informed domestic public and private investment as well as foreign direct investment. Yet traditional development partners cannot meet the scale of investment needed for DRR alone. COVID-19 recovery packages as well as C0P 26 commitments to increase financing for climate change adaptation provide opportunities to increase cross border collaboration for DRR. Moreover, the wealth of knowledge and expertise within civil society organizations, and academic, research and scientific institutions, in both developed and developing countries can be leveraged to strengthen cross-border cooperation and capacity support for DRR. 

Cross-border cooperation between such organizations and actors: 

  • supports the exchange of risk data and science and technology for disaster risk reduction 
  • allows for more systemic and regular sharing of expertise, best practices and lessons learnt 
  • promotes coherence and synergies between their work 
  • supports cost-sharing for a more effective use of both financial and human resources more efficiently. 

Session guiding questions 

  • How can DRR be better integrated into international development cooperation across all sectors? 
  • What kind of approaches to cross-border disaster risk governance and cooperation have been most effective, including across shared ecosystems, water resources, and infrastructure assets?  
  • What opportunities exist to better integrate academic, research, and science and technology institutions into cross-border cooperation for risk reduction? What types of policies, mechanisms and networks are needed? 
  • To what extent are South-South and triangular cooperation being sufficiently leveraged as means of implementation? 
Projections on Sustainable Development Goals and 70th Anniversary of the United Nations

Agenda

27 May 2022
09:00 - 10:30 (Bali UTC+8)

Location

Pecatu Hall
BNDCC 2-Ground Floor

Online access

Remote participation available to those registered for the conference
Live stream available to all

Participation

Open to those registered for the conference

Interpretation

AR, EN, FR, RU, ES, ZH

Details

Accessible
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Contact

Huw Beynon, beynon@un.org Rahul Sengupta, sengupta@un.org Roberto Schiano Lomoriello, roberto.schianolomoriello@un.org

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