Organizer: Janki Andharia
Format: Online, Evening
Abstract:
There is a close interface between development and risk. Unsustainable and unequal development can exacerbate risks and may even create new risks. While no development can be risk-free, risk-informed development planning, a relatively new concept, can definitely facilitate a highly resilient and sustainable development process. The 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development will be nearly impossible to achieve unless development policies and plans at all administrative levels and sectors are infused with a risk consciousness. This segment will explore ideas around institutionalisation of Risk Informed Planning (RIP) within governments, a robust intervention that would not only enable reduction in impact of disasters, but ensure that development gains are sustained at local and regional levels. Rising disaster risks from extreme weather and their changing patterns, combined with rapidly growing population, unplanned urbanisation, environmental degradation, technological and socio-economic conditions, including poverty, conflicts and epidemics, are a concern. Years of development gains are often wiped out by a single hazard event. If government and civil society organisations engaged in development programmes (through formal schemes and programmes), create synergies and institute mechanisms for risk informed planning, the transformative impact on the future of the economy and society would be enormous, by minimising losses . However, the pathway to mainstream effective risk-informed planning (RIP) into development is neither linear nor uniform across countries. Each country has its own unique history, political ideology and aspirations and thus, there exists no common blueprint or rules on how to accomplish risk-informed planning; rather a dynamic approach with context-specific efforts is the key. Currently, there are no well-defined benchmarks or indicators to measure progress in RIP initiatives. Ideas around innovative monitoring and evaluation framework are welcome. The segment invites papers that explore legal, institutional and policy framework, for mainstreaming risk in multi-sectoral development planning.
Themes: Sustainable Solutions from the Global South, Knowledge-to-Action