Every day this week we’ll be sharing brief highlights from our network’s engagement at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2022.
Monday was day one of the preparatory days at the GPDRR, in Bali, Indonesia. The day began with the GNDR members’ briefing led by Shivangi Chavda, our Senior Regional Lead. Members and the secretariat discussed our call to action and everyone agreed to support the key messages wherever they were intervening or speaking at the official sessions and side events.
We were proud to see the opening ceremony moderated by Adessou Kossivi, our Regional Lead for Africa. The key highlight was the presentation by Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, UNDRR, where she emphasised the need to not only protect people but also include them in DRR processes. She stressed the need to bring coherence to DRR policies, tackle climate impacts as outlined in the Paris Agreement, and support the recommendations of the midterm review of the Sendai Framework for a better implementation of the second phase.
Carlos Kaiser from NGO Inclusiva, a GNDR member organisation in Chile, spoke at the opening ceremony and called for decision makers to ‘leave no one behind’. More attention must be given to those most at risk, he said, and we must promote localisation and risk-informed development, including the inclusion of children and youth, as well as DRR financing.
Rebecca Murphy, Policy Lead and co-chair of the Stakeholder Engagement Mechanisms (SEM) led three sessions on behalf of GNDR. These primarily helped CSOs to understand what lessons were learnt during the last three years where communities have faced the cascading impacts of complex risks. Different constituencies such as gender, disability, farmers and older people presented their plans and opportunities for future SEM engagement.
Bijay Kumar, Executive Director at GNDR, spoke at a session titled Constructing for a sustainable future: building resilience through recovery in a Covid-19 transformed world. He emphasised the role of CSOs in ensuring that infrastructure spaces are built from the perspective of communities most at risk, and that systems around construction need to be more transparent and accountable.