Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and assessing disaster damages and losses in development

Training Workshop Event

As part of activities under Track I of the GFDRR in Africa, the UN/ISDR and the World Bank together with a number of ISDR system partners, including UNDP/Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Reduction (BCPR) and the ProVention Consortium, under the auspices of the African Union, will sponsor a training workshop for Sub-Saharan African countries on mainstreaming DRR into development strategies, including the PRSPs, and assessment of post-disaster needs.

The planned activity is a training (skills development), advocacy, sensitization and knowledge sharing workshop involving lectures by specialists/trainers, country experience presentations, group discussions, and training exercises.  Training in mainstreaming will be based on the methodologies and presentational approaches developed by the World Bank, UNDP and ProVention Consortium while that on post-disaster loss assessment will be based on adaptation and enhancement of the ECLAC methodology promoted by the World Bank and the Global Risk Identification Project (GRIP).

The training event will focus on how to: (i) apply risk assessment and identify and obtain key data and capacity needs for risk assessment, (ii) effectively mainstream disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into development and identify existing opportunities for strengthening capacities for mainstreaming, (iii) do disaster damage and loss assessment, identify key requirements for the assessment and use the information from assessments to estimate financial needs for recovery and reconstruction, (iv) expose participants to the HFA reporting framework, process, methodology and mechanisms for reporting on progress on HFA implementation to UN/ISDR secretariat

The workshop will cover a period of four days:

The first day will focus on key issues to consider in responding to disasters and mainstreaming DRR based on recent experiences of countries with the two processes.

The second day will cover three inter-related issues: (a) how to increase knowledge of key capacity and data in disaster risk assessment as the context for post-event assessment and mainstreaming, and (b) discussion of available tools for mainstreaming, and, (c) strengthening use of climate change adaptation strategies and tools as mechanisms for disaster risk reduction.  The session on mainstreaming will address such issues as: the necessary elements an effective strategy to mainstream DRR in the priory sectors, issues to be mainstreamed, criteria for identifying opportunities for mainstreaming, institutional structures for mainstreaming, enhancing coordination of agencies involved in mainstreaming, and, indicators for assessing progress on mainstreaming.

The third day covers topics in identifying, quantifying and assessing damages and losses resulting from disaster events.  This segment on damage and loss assessment will follow the recent GFDRR-sponsored training on post-disaster loss assessment in Madagascar held in December 2007.  It will include presentations on the conceptual setting of the methodology developed by ECLAC and a general description of the standard practices of the assessments using that methodology.  It will also involve overviews and exercises in assessing damages in priority sectors and the macroeconomy as well as issues relating to data availability and use.

The fourth day will cover a key theme essential to developing capacities in mainstreaming and loss assessment: reporting on the implementation and progress of DRR in Africa based on the ISDR system-wide HFA Reporting Framework for 2007-2009.  Three major outcomes are expected from this session are: (a) enhanced knowledge of HFA reporting process and requirements, (b) agreement on benchmarks and indicators to track, and, (c) timelines for reporting on progress in Africa to the UN/ISDR secretariat