Our partners at COP26 are all contributing to a dramatic schedule that will pitch Glasgow to the forefront of the global response to climate change. The Resilience Hub events platform is live on this site and you are invited to register to attend either virtually or in person. Browse the calendar and register your interest here.

Our partners for the EWEA/DRR programme theme: 

Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP), that aims to make 1 billion people safer from disaster. 

Willis Towers Watson (WTW), the global broking, advisory and solutions firm. 

Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR), that aims to improve the lives of people affected by disaster. 

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

What has EWEA/DRR got to do with resilience?

Waiting for disasters to happen is no longer an option, particularly when we have unprecedented access to risk and forecast information that tells us they are imminent. Early action saves lives and livelihoods and protects development and resilience gains. Not only this, early action is cost effective. Investment in protective or preventative actions before a hazard becomes a disaster saves lives – and money. 

Crises are increasingly multidimensional, severe and frequent with many countries experiencing multiple overlapping crises at the same time while climate change is deepening and driving new and unexpected risks. Climate change has been described as the ultimate threat-multiplier, accelerating risks of poverty, food insecurity, disease, conflict, migration and forced displacement. 

These interconnected risks require interconnected action, and EWEA interventions cannot take place in a vacuum. The principle must be clearly embedded within comprehensive climate and disaster risk management and must be considered within the development and implementation of national DRR strategies and adaptation plans. EWEA (and related anticipatory actions and financing) must also be systematically connected to disaster risk reduction work led by governments and communities.   

What does this mean in terms of projects and initiatives on the ground?

For the Resilience Hub, we are focusing on the use of EWEA/DRR to promote and enable resilience building at different scales and infrastructure lifecycle stages. For example, this could include: 

• Use of Early Warning Early Action to avert loss and damage caused by climate change affecting different regions of the world 
• Locally led action from humanitarian to development connected to disaster risk reduction 

• Using new technical solutions on climate information; past and future risk data and projections for local level decision making 
• EWEA/DRR integration in national DRR strategies, policies, national climate plans (NDCs), national adaptation plans (NAPs)  
• State of play on anticipatory action and risk financing    
• Shock responsive, risk-informed early action building on existing structures (eg, social protection mechanisms) 
• Gender and climate-induced vulnerabilities and approaches to early action 

How will we know if we’re getting it right? 

We have a compelling vision for 2030 where risk-informed early action and risk reduction are the norm in all sectors with significant increases to pre-arranged financing across development, preparedness and humanitarian contexts. 

If we get our collaboration right, now and in the future, we will hope to see:  

• Greater awareness of how EWEA offers effective and people-centred adaptation to minimize loss and damage caused by climate change 

• Launch of new tools, data sets, financial innovation and best practices for tackling specific challenges related to the incorporation of early action mechanisms in disaster risk reduction. 
• EWEA covering multiple sectors, and not limited to humanitarian actors who have traditionally led much of the disaster risk reduction work. Early action local interventions backed up to national policies, strategies and plans to be scalable and sustainable 

The full programme will be launched shortly, along with the event platform and registration. Sign up using the form on this site and we’ll update you as it goes live.