International Recovery Forum 2023: Building Back Better and Long-term Recovery Outcomes: Aspirations for a Resilient, Sustainable Future

Event Description

At the midpoint of implementation of the Sendai Framework, countries continue to experience significant challenges with building back better in practice, and achieving improved recovery outcomes. Disaster recovery has been the least researched area in disaster risk reduction, with few long-term longitudinal studies. The factors that drive recovery outcomes in the medium to long-term are not as well-understood as those which drive short term results from recovery projects and programmes. Yet, those are the decisive factors that determine whether communities are able to build back more resilient, equitable, and prosperous societies in the decades and generations following a disaster. Recovery is a long, complex, and expensive process involving many stakeholders that can take decades, and long-term considerations can be neglected.

The International Recovery Forum 2023 will feature discussions between policymakers, civil society leaders, and experts on the mechanisms to drive better long-term recovery outcomes for a resilient and sustainable future. Participants will discuss the long-term recovery experiences of countries impacted by disasters, and will glean lessons for long-term recovery from recent and ongoing recovery efforts. Reflecting on these experiences, panelists will seek to understand the factors that drove long-run successes and failures for impacted communities. Speakers will examine current practices and mechanisms, to consider how they can plan for longer term recovery and sustainability goals, how they can finance better recovery outcomes and leave no one behind, and what institutions and policies are necessary to do so. They will consider how to plan for recovery outcomes that yield resilience against future hazards and a changing climate.

Objectives

The Forum seeks to provide a venue for sharing knowledge on building back better for the long-term by examining the nuance of the larger long-term recovery process. The program aims to deliver on the following objectives:

1. Learning from Experience: Long-Run Recovery from Large-Scale Disasters

Panelists will present on the recovery experiences from countries impacted by large-scale disasters over the longer-term. The discussion will take up evidence on effective long term-recovery focusing on challenges, barriers, and gaps as well as enablers and lessons learned from their successes and failures, and how these can inform recovery programmes moving forward.

2. Good Practices and Innovations to Ensure Better Long-term Recovery Outcomes

Panelists will present on several domains of recovery practice, through the perspective of planning for longer term recovery, resilience, and sustainability goals and an analysis of how stakeholders recover. The discussion will examine what works for enabling long-term recovery. This may include financing better recovery outcomes, inclusion and leaving no one behind, institutional considerations and policies, climate change and other evolving and emerging risks. 

Program

Opening Session

1. Mr. Ronald JACKSON, Chair of the Steering Committee of the International Recovery Platform (UNDP) (Video)
2. Mr. UEMURA Noboru, Deputy Director General for Disaster Management, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (Video)
3. Mr. SAITO Motohiko, Governor of Hyogo Prefecture (Video)
4. Ms. Mami MIZUTORI, Special Representative of  the  United Nations  Secretary-General  (SRSG)  for  Disaster  Risk  Reduction,  Head  of  the  United Nations  Office  for  Disaster  Risk  Reduction  (UNDRR) (Video)

Keynote Session

1. Mr. TAKEMURA Masayuki, Professor, Disaster Mitigation Research Center, Nagoya University (Video)
2. Mr. Emil K. SADAIN, Senior Undersecretary, Department of Public Works and Highways, Government of the Philippines (Video)

Panel Session 1: Learning from Experience: Long-Run Recovery from Large Scale Disasters

1. Ms. Laurie JOHNSON, Principal, Laurie Johnson Consulting and Research and Visiting Scientist, University of California, Berkeley (Video)
2. Ms. Lianne DALZIEL, Former Mayor of Christchurch, New Zealand (Video)
3. Mr. Nadeem AHMED, Former Deputy Chairman, Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) and former Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority, Government of Pakistan (Video)
4. Mr. Emil K. SADAIN, Senior Undersecretary, Department of Public Works and Highways, Government of the Philippines (Video)
5. Discussant: Ms. Riyanti DJALANTE, Assistant Director and Head of the Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Division, ASEAN Secretariat (Panel 1 Discussion Video)

Panel Session 2: Good Practices and Innovations to Ensure Better Long-term Recovery Outcomes

1. Mr. Ryan Christopher VIADO, Acting Chief, Post-Disaster Evaluation and Management Division, Office of Civil Defense, Government of the Philippines (Video)
2. Mr. Kunal SATYARTHI, Joint Secretary, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India (Video)
3. H.E. Mr. Diego Alejandro DALTON Rosales, Ambassador of El Salvador to Japan
   Mr. Luis Alonso AMAYA, General Director, General Directorate of Civil Protection, Government of El Salvador (Video)
4. Ms. Farah KABIR, Country Director, ActionAid Bangladesh (Video)
5. Discussant: Ms. Laurie JOHNSON (Panel 2 Discussion Video)
6. Discussant: Mr. Joseph STABLES, Regional Infrastructure Advisor for Asia, UNOPS (Panel 2 Discussion Video)

Closing Session

1. Mr. Abhilash PANDA, Officer-in-Charge, Intergovernmental Processes, Interagency Cooperation and Partnerships Branch, UNDRR (Video)
2. Mr. MURAKAMI, Takeo, Director, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, Co-Chair of the IRP Steering Committee (Video)