Day: February 4, 2023

Three Kenyans were among 12 prominent personalities conferred to be members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Council of Eminent Persons.

The three Major General (Rtd) John Selli who is the chairman of Kenya Council of Elders and two former top athletes Paul Tergat and Catherine Ndereba were unveiled by the Igad council in Mombasa during the just concluded Security Sector Forum on Regional Cooperation and Coordination against Transitional Security Threats to spearhead peace and integration within the region.

Others were Olympic Gold medalist Haile Gabresilassie, Deratu Tulu and Prof. Ahmed Zakira, a renowned scholar from Ethiopia. From Somalia the list included Ugas Ali Ugas, a respected clan elder and Professor Idil Osman, a professor of communication and regional peace advocate.

Ambassador Deng’ Alier Deng’ Ruai and reverend Dr. Gabriel Gai Riam from South Sudan, former Djibouti Minister of Health Kassim Issak Osman and his counterpart Aicha Mohamed Robleh were also conferred with the honours to be part of the council.

Meanwhile, about 36.1 million people in the IGAD region have been affected by the current drought situation and are facing heightened levels of food insecurity.

The drought is also said to have wiped out an estimated 4.2 million heads of livestock, shattering the livelihoods of entire pastoralist communities and crippling them economically across the region.

This has been described as a devastating challenge to the continent given that the region hosts almost 50 per cent of the livestock in sub-Saharan Africa and livestock accounts for almost 15 percent of the region’s GDP.

In response to these extreme weather challenges, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has proposed to undertake a number of proactive measures beginning with convening a regional climate outlook forum to be held on February 20, 2023.

“This forum will be part of our continuing effort to remain the most climate-aware region on the continent and enhance the ability of our member states to collect and process data for disaster forecasting, in order to reduce the gap between early warning and early action,” said IGAD Executive Secretary, Workneh Gebeyehu.

“Already, we have noted some evidence of the success of this approach. In 2021 and 2022, we noted with some satisfaction that our initiative to ‘take the data to the people’ raised the warning in good time,” Gebeyehu said.

He described 2020 and 2021 as the most challenging years in the history of IGAD, saying the period was one of the hottest, driest and most conflict-affected periods in recent memory.

 

 

Source: Kenya News Agency

Executive summary

The Arab region is prone to multiple natural hazards. The regions’ acute features of poverty, lack of development, poor and inadequate governance systems, conflicts, environmental degradation, rapid demographic growth, and internally displaced populations and refugees constitute important risk drivers. The latter often turn natural hazards into disasters. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) concerns resonate in the Arab region by the adoption of the Sendai Framework (SF) for DRR 2015-2030 by all Arab countries.

Despite the adoption of SF, the region still foresees intensifying and increasingly complex risk configurations. Climate change is imposing additional pressures on the Arab region, especially in countries already suffering from water scarcity, droughts, and food insecurity. Emerging systemic risks such as those triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed serious fault lines and vulnerabilities in societies, institutions and economies of the Arab countries. The pandemic has in most countries of the Arab region become an exacerbating factor for existing development challenges, and an impediment for achieving the SF’s outcomes.

Half-way into the lifespan of the SF, there is an urgent need to have a better understanding of the current status of its implementation and progress in the Arab states. In the light of what was presented, the current study presents the results of the Midterm review (MTR) for the implementation of SF. A critical analysis of conducted multi-level and multi-stakeholder consultations and existing documents will allow taking stock of the implementation of the SF to date and assessing progress made and challenges experienced in preventing and reducing disaster risk.

The adopted methodology consisted of: conducting national and regional consultations along with a desk review of the SF Monitoring System reports; Global Assessment Report (RAR)s 2015, 2019 and 2022, GAR Special Reports; Regional Assessment Reports (RARs); the Arab Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ASDRR); studies of Arab Stakeholder groups for DRR; National DRR Strategies in Arab countries and related documents sourced through prevention web.

A scientific literature review was also conducted using a database search query in Scopus repository of academic research papers (published by ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis Online, Wiley Online Library, Emerald Insight, etc.). In addition, the outcomes of national and regional events (e.g., Arab Regional Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction, Arab Partnership Meetings for Disaster Risk Reduction) were gathered. Collected documents were filtered and analyzed to assess SF’s progress in relation to: 1) the four priorities for Action, 2) Collaboration, partnership and cooperation around DRR, 3) the seven global targets, and 4) the expected outcome and goal.

Key findings revealed that, despite the specific constraints of the region, the Arab governments, stakeholders and communities have shown commitment in implementing SF. The region’s collective progress towards achieving the goal and targets of SF has been highlighted with several success stories.

However, the overall progress in the Arab region shows considerable disparities. The assessment in relation to the SF four priorities for action unraveled that the effort done for advancing “Priority for action 3: Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience” was not enough. The analysis also uncovered geographical discrepancies in the progress of SF and accordingly highlighted priorities of actions in the Arab region. On a national scale, countries under conflict still face considerable socio-economic and political challenges hampering the implementation of SF.

The conducted MTR also unraveled new and emerging issues as well as shifts in contexts since the adoption of the Sendai Framework in 2015.

On the basis of key findings related to gaps, setbacks and challenges, areas where greater efforts are required to accelerate the progress and to pursue the outcome of the SF were pinpointed. Accordingly, recommendations for prioritized, accelerated and integrated regional, national and local cooperation and action in the period 2023 to 2030, and beyond were presented.

 

 

Source: UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction