Evidence from across Africa and Asia signifies that shifting seasonal patterns and high intensity extreme events are already eroding community and household resilience to a wide set of external shocks. Investing in integrated and flexible institutional and policy frameworks is a first step towards creating a policy environment that can build resilience to climate and disaster risks.
Two years of action, dialogue and research with partners seeking to strengthen climate and disaster resilience across Asia and Africa provides a strong knowledge base to inform this process. Key policy recommendations include:
- National agencies should facilitate horizontal integration through cross-government collaboration and engagement with civil society, business and citizens, to develop integrated policy and action on disaster risk, climate change and poverty reduction.
- National agencies and international donors should provide incentives for collaboration between the different communities of practice.
- Political leadership on integration at the national level should be backed up with clear guidelines and resources to support action and implementation at all levels.
- Systems and structures should be established to facilitate vertical integration.
- Ensure that technical and specialist knowledge is integrated into processes at the local level, leading to more informed and coherent strategies for managing change and uncertainty.
- Accountability mechanisms should be strengthened between communities and local government to enable more informed disaster and climate risk action.
- Donors should allow for adjustments in programme design which are responsive to new and emerging external knowledge and changing local conditions.
- Donor funding should invest in programmes that support both technological experimentation and provide safety nets for community experimentation for building local climate and disaster resilience mechanisms.