The COVID pandemic has brought death and economic destruction to all parts of the globe, underlining why effective action on disaster prevention and management must embrace all sectors of society and involve national and international actors, a conference on risk reduction in the Americas and the Caribbean was told.
Inter-sectoral coordination, legal frameworks, policies and plans, up-to-date risk information to drive decision making, clear participation mechanisms, and integration from global to regional and local levels are all elements of good governance, a priority for action of the global blueprint on disaster risk reduction, the Sendai Framework.
“COVID has revealed things that we knew before, but which have become even more glaring,” Alan Lavell, Associate Researcher, Costa Rican branch of the Latin American Social Science Faculty-FLACSO, told the Vll Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas and the Caribbean, hosted by Jamaica.
A high-level panel on the fourth and last day of the platform examined the challenges and opportunities to improve governance and inter-sectoral coordination in a region that is routinely exposed to a wide range of disasters and has suffered disproportionately from the ravages of COVID.
Although the Sendai Framework specifies the need to strengthen governance in risk management, the issue of pandemics is not yet fully incorporated into the approach, said Ciro Ugarte, Health Emergencies Director, PAHO/WHO. “COVID shows this should be broached without delay by all governments and all disciplines,” he told the session, which was held in a virtual format.
Source: Prevention web