Sendai Framework: Big gaps remain in achieving disaster reduction goals

APMCDRR 2024 / OCTOBER 14, 2024 Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR Kamal Kishore gives a speech during the media reception of 2024 Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City. Around 4,000 high-level international and local delegates from 69 countries, convened by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, gather to strengthen cooperation on disaster resilience and risk reduction. The biennial event is being hosted by the Philippines for the first time. INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES

With five years remaining until the Sendai Framework deadline, Environment Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo Loyzaga acknowledged that there is still “a big gap between where we are at the moment, and where we would like to be in 2030.”

During the media reception at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (APMCDRR), which serves as the main platform for implementing the Sendai Framework, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) said that while there has been a lot of progress made in reducing disaster risk, “we have to do so much more.”

“If you live in a cyclone-, typhoon-, hurricane-prone area anywhere in the world right now, the mortality risk is a third of what it was 15 years ago,” said Kamal Kishore, head of the UNDRR.

“So we’ve had significant progress, and you’ll see similar progress for other hazards as well. But is that enough? Certainly not,” he added.

Environment Secretary Antonia Loyzaga (Photo from the Facebook page of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources)

The Sendai Framework, adopted in 2015, seeks to reduce disaster risk and the resulting loss of lives and livelihoods by 2030. However, according to the UNDRR website, “countries are going off course” from the goals set by the Sendai Framework as it projected that disasters globally would increase by 40 percent in 2030.

“Scaling up disaster prevention is a monumental task, but one that we can achieve together by pooling our competencies, knowledge and resources,” read the UNDRR website. The UN agency partnered with the Philippines to host the APMCDRR.

Read: What is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction?

To meet their obligations in the Sendai Framework, the Departments of Energy and Natural Resources have been working closely with other government agencies, said Loyzaga.

“We are now engaging the DA (Department of Agriculture), the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development), the DOE (Department of Energy), the Department of Labor [and Employment], and other civil society groups as well,” she said.

Low-carbon future

The DENR is particularly working with the DOE because “a huge part of our greenhouse gas emissions does come from the energy sector,” Loyzaga said.

She added that “at the end of the day, the important target for us is to keep the low-carbon future ahead of us and to establish our energy transition trajectory.”

However, Loyzaga said achieving those targets would be a “very complex” undertaking, and “life-changing choices need to be made in terms of the way we consume our energy.”

“These are not simple choices. [It] will have cascading effects,” she said.

Read: PH a ‘lighthouse’ in Disaster Risk Reduction, says top UN official