Regional Assessment Report (RAR) on DRR for Arab States 2nd Editorial Committee Meeting (ECM)

The Regional Assessment Report is an important initiative of the UNDRR- Regional Office for Arab States (ROAS) that contributes to the achievement of the Sendai Framework through monitoring risk patterns and trends and progress in disaster risk reduction in the Arab region while discussing various challenges and opportunities for development of Arab countries in DRR. The objective of developing this Regional assessment report is to give an overview on disaster risks in the region based on evidence-based analysis.

The regional assessment report will be coordinated by UNDRR ROAS under the overall guidance of the Chief of Office, in close collaboration with other UNDRR partners. To guarantee credibility and impartiality, the development of RAR will be guided by an independent Editorial Committee. RAR will be launched in 2020 to be followed by a comprehensive series of meetings of Editorial Committee members.

The Regional Assessment Report will be a starting point to address rapidly increasing disasters exposure in the Arab region towards addressing the challenges of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation within a broad framework of sustainable development and poverty reduction. Buffeted by a succession of inter-related crisis, in many risk prone Arab countries risk reduction is still not a national development priority due to conflict and other issues. The regional assessment report will highlight the risk scenario, drivers of risk and its trends and how to adopt approaches based on broad participation and partnerships and to address underlying drivers of risk, such as declining ecosystems, vulnerable rural livelihoods and badly planned and managed urban development. 

The RAR will highlight the importance of investing in disaster risk reduction and the need to take risk informed decisions for sustainable development. RAR will help the national governments civil society and other stakeholders through strategic policy advice on how to address these challenges. To do so, RAR will offer an enhanced and updated analysis of regional risk patterns, trends and drivers, an identification of the costs and benefits of addressing different risk segments and strata; a review of progress of Arab countries in the past years towards the Sendai Framework and a set of policy recommendations as way forward for creating an enabling environment for risk reduction.