In recent years, the cost of disasters has increased as a function of more extreme weather events and uninformed development decisions, which unintentionally place people and assets in harm’s way.
Despite this growth, there has been no equivalent increase in the amount of funding to reduce disaster risks. Indeed, the lack of funding was identified in the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, as one of the biggest obstacles to transforming plans and strategies into action on the ground.
By some measures, the amount of funding for disaster prevention has even decreased. According to a review by UNDRR, within the humanitarian sector, the amount of funding for disaster prevention and preparedness has gone down over the years – from an already low level of 3.6% between 2015 and 2018, to 3.3% between 2019 and 2023.
Compounding the problem, public development projects and private sector investments are often not informed by an understanding of disaster risks, which could increase the likelihood of these investments triggering disasters or being destroyed by them.
The High-Level Forum on Accelerated Disaster Risk Reduction Financing to Build Resilience, which met over two days from 25 to 26 March in Oslo, took up the challenge of addressing these aspects of finance by convening high-level representatives from 20 countries in addition to experts from international organizations, multilateral development banks, the private sector, and research institutes.
“We gathered in Oslo to advance the disaster risk reduction financing agenda. With the constructive contributions over the past two days, I believe we have created the momentum we need to take this forward,” said Mr. Åsmund Aukrust, Norway’s Minister of International Development, who opened the forum.
Technical support for the Forum was provided by UNDRR, which participated through a delegation led by Mr. Kamal Kishore, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Head of UNDRR.
Mr. Kishore expressed his gratitude to Norway for hosting these discussions and noted the centrality of disaster risk reduction to addressing many global challenges:
“Financing is the single challenge that unites the disaster, climate, development, and humanitarian domains. The unique advantage of disaster risk reduction is that it can simultaneously strengthen all the other domains, because of its emphasis on reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience.”
The forum’s outcomes will inform policy discussion on financing in international fora, including the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025, the G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group, and at the events leading up to the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development. In addition, UNDRR, in coordination with Norway, will follow up with partners to transform some of the proposals into concrete actions over the coming months.
"Text source: Oslo Forum elevates financing for disaster risk reduction | UNDRR)"