Sendai, March 2015

In this video interview recorded by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) from the United Kingdom at the WCDRR in Sendai, María Verónica Bastías, GNDR´s Regional Development Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean talks about how GNDR´s Views from the Frontline programme showed that communities were unaware of the existence of the HFA, found challenging to make progress and that "all the policies were far from their perceptions and needs", in reference to the local level.

Also, more effort is needed to take into account the diversity within communities according to María Verónica: "inclusiveness is one of the most important issues when it comes to DRR", because "there are capabilities at local level that is important to consider", she says in reference to the implementation of the SFDRR. 

María Verónica talks as well about the need to use inclusive language in the text of the framework so people become more involved in the implementation at local level.

To enable a more inclusive SFDRR, the Executive Director of the Chilean non-profit organisation ONG Inclusiva, Carlos Kaiser, feels that things need to change, and there are already signs that they are changing. Carlos says "They used to speak about us without us. Now...we are here!" referring to people with disabilities. He feels that participaton is a bit more open now so people with disabilities take part in the dialogue as agents and they are not just the subject of the dialogue.

Carlos adds "one of the actions we can have is...to be more focused on the scientifical aspect to have applied knowledge, generate knowledge and to share knowledge", otherwise ideas will not develop into actions and just "thinking without doing is fantasy", so we can build a safer world for everybody.

Watch the video below