Resilience is not optional: why disaster risk reduction must anchor the G20 agenda

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction confirms that global disaster losses have intensified in recent years, exceeding US$2 trillion a year, when accounting for cascading and ecosystem costs. These figures are not just statistics; they represent lives disrupted, livelihoods lost, and futures deferred.

[...]

For Santam, resilience building is both a business imperative and a societal commitment. In 2012, answering a government call for stronger municipal capacity, we established the Partnership for Risk and Resilience (P4RR).

[...]

The programme has provided training in disaster management and firefighting to over 1 000 individuals, reached more than 100 000 citizens through disaster awareness education, and supported targeted interventions such as flood defence, fire services enhancement and stormwater maintenance – including a pilot that cleaned more than 1 000 stormwater catchpits in Tshwane over a 16-month period.

[...]

Building on these lessons, Santam will soon launch a similar initiative in Namibia, with the long-term goal of extending this model to other regions. Because resilience cannot be confined within national borders – risk does not respect geography, and neither should our response.

[...]

The InsuResilience Global Partnership (IGP), launched during the German G7 presidency and formally established at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) in 2017, brings together governments, the private sector, and civil society to scale up climate and disaster risk finance solutions. Its mission – to protect 500 million vulnerable people against climate and disaster risks by 2025 – reflects exactly the kind of ambition the G20 should now champion.