Launch of VFL 2017 monitoring programme

The Views from the Frontline 2017 monitoring programme was officially launched on May 22nd May at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Cancun, Mexico.

The GNDR Secretariat is excited to announce the official launch of the new Views from the Frontline (VFL) 2017 monitoring programme. VFL 2017 was officially launched on May 22nd, 2017, during a Views from the Frontline event at the Global Platform in Cancun. Click this link to see a video playlist in the GNDR YouTube channel of the entire launch.

The Sendai Framework and other post-2015 frameworks have all emphasised the need to strengthen good governance and its underpinning principles of ‘inclusion’, ‘participation’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘empowerment’ of affected populations and local organisations. This is because preventing disasters requires the active participation of people, community-based organisations and local state and non-state actors in developing and implementing DRR strategies, plans and actions.

But this collaboration will require monitoring mechanisms to report on progress, to inform decision-making and provide an accountability mechanism that can measure the impact of DRR strategies at the local level. Importantly, the local information gathered must be disaggregated, relevant and easily accessible to local stakeholders. The monitoring must pay special attention to those people disproportionately affected by disasters, especially the poorest.

However, experience from national monitoring mechanisms, framed around global targets and associated national indicators, have identified a number of gaps and challenges, particularly in generating locally-relevant disaggregated information that takes into account the need for different local uses. Moreover, national online monitoring tools and disaster loss databases tend to be based on policies and plans designed to address ‘large-scale’ disaster events. They do not focus on recurring small-scale disasters, which constitute the majority of loss and damage and particularly affect low-income households.

On the other hand, experience from past Views from the Frontline (VFL) programmes (2009 / 2011 / 2013) shows that an inclusive participatory local monitoring mechanism is an excellent way to raise citizenry awareness, engagement and social demand for DRR. Also, VFL has served to increase dialogue and understanding between local state and non-state actors – the foundations for effective partnerships.

Mindful of both of these challenges and opportunities, the VFL 2017 programme is designed to assess progress in key aspects of inclusive local risk governance, together with the “enabling environment” needed by the people-centred approach advocated in the Sendai and other post-2015 frameworks. The programme will contribute towards establishing local baselines, provide real-time information to inform local strategies and actions plans, and generate additional information to complement the official datasets gathered using the online Sendai Framework Monitor Tool.

Thanks to a grant from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Australian government, GNDR is now designing the survey methodology before piloting the programme in the Asia-Pacific region. Once successfully tested, depending on the level of available resources, the programme will be implemented globally. Initially, it will target the 50 countries identified within the UNDP 5:10:50 initiative.

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