Dr Animesh Kumar: Comprehensive risk management is a key means to avert, minimise and address loss and damage
Today we are introducing you to Dr Animesh Kumar, Head of the UNDRR Office in Bonn.
Animesh manages the organisation’s global portfolio on climate action and comprehensive risk management, disaster data, and monitoring of the Sendai Framework and SDGs.
Animesh brings a wealth of experience to UNDRR, having served as the Deputy Head of the UNDRR Regional Offices in Africa and Asia-Pacific. In these capacities, he led regional policy and coordination on disaster risk reduction, including inter-governmental and stakeholder mechanisms, and joint UN efforts on building resilience.
In his previous positions, Animesh worked in other UN entities in Africa and Asia, working on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and food security. He is a Geographer and holds an MPhil and PhD in climate change adaptation and sustainability.
We asked Animesh to talk to us about comprehensive risk management (CRM), which is a key focus area for both REAP and UNDRR. If you’re interested in reading more about CRM, head over to www.undrr.org/crm, and you can also access a recently-launched Thought Leadership Course on Synergizing Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation to really get to grips with the subject.
1. Can you briefly describe comprehensive risk management, and tell us why it is so important?
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement highlight the need to develop and implement national adaptation plans, and promote comprehensive risk management as a key means to avert, minimise and address loss and damage. Furthermore, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction seeks to increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies.
These international blueprints to resilience call for the need to assess, reduce, transfer or retain risk at different levels and time scales. However, the planning instruments developed to implement these often vary in the same country, resulting in potential incoherent implementation and suboptimal utilisation of resources.
The ever-increasing magnitude and impact of the climate emergency calls for urgently meeting our emission targets, and enhancing our level of ambition in adaptation and risk reduction. Parallel planning processes to adapt, reduce risk, and avert, minimise and address loss and damage, hence, may impede smooth implementation. Further, risk-blind planning can - and in some cases already has - created new risks and resulted in maladaptation.
Considering all of this, UNDRR has been consistently calling for the need for greater synergies in planning processes, with the ultimate aim to have a common planning process that helps countries adapt, reduce risk, and avert, minimise and address losses and damages. Drawing from the Paris Agreement, and risk as the common basis, the approach is termed ‘comprehensive risk management’ (CRM), which is also in line with the Target E of the Sendai Framework and is a key element to ensure a sound contribution to sustainable development.
The approach is not new. Several Pacific Island Countries have initiated the approach, first at the national level, and then at the regional level. The current approach is more advanced as it builds on a thorough and shared understanding of risk at different timescales and taking into account the diversity of contexts.
2. How does early warning/early action fit into comprehensive risk management approaches - and are there examples you can share from your work?
Early warning is a good example of the application of the CRM approach, being both an adaptation and risk reducing measure, and a proven means to reduce losses. Thus, early warning/early action may fit well into broader CRM planning processes.
However, we would want to avoid a situation where these planning instruments on DRR and adaptation explore funding from different sources for the same measure (i.e., early warning), in the same country. To avoid such possible duplication, it is important that countries converge on joined-up implementation for EW-EA and thus maximise existing and new resources.
More importantly, to be effective early warnings must involve a range of diverse actors in the system, requiring effective collaboration across a host of institutions. As an application of the CRM approach, then, effective early warning systems ensure better coordination, offering a common planning instrument for coherent implementation.
For instance, in the Maldives, the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Technology and the Ministry of Defence, through its National Disaster Management Authority, were in the process of developing a National Adaptation Plan and a National Disaster Risk Management Plan respectively. Following a series of consultations, in particular a multi-sector and stakeholder workshop in 2022, the two ministries have now agreed to develop a common plan. Maldives is also a flagship country on EW-EA, being one of the 30 initial roll-out countries for the Early Warnings for All initiative, as well as a recipient of multilateral support through the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative, etc. A common policy basis for implementation is indeed expected to strengthen EW-EA and hence resilience in the country. The government of Maldives recently presented this roadmap at a recent REAP meeting.
3. How has being a REAP Partner helped you scale up your work in this area?
The above points are well-reflected in the REAP approach to enhance coverage of EW-EA: REAP’s Target 1, in fact, is to support countries to integrate their disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation policies and plans. The REAP Working Group on CRM that focuses on this target is a very good basis to huddle Partners around a common purpose.
The working group recently undertook a mapping exercise and we were surprised to find how we were often supporting the same government, through different ministries, in developing plans without sufficient collaboration. Thanks to the Partnership, we are now in a position to cooperate better and maximise joint efforts in countries, while benefiting from the diverse and rich set of tools and resources at the disposal of all the Partners.
The REAP working group has also been very helpful in developing and reviewing some recent CRM products, e.g. the Thought Leadership Course on Synergizing Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, that builds on CRM guidelines like Comprehensive Risk Assessment and Planning in the Context of Climate Change (linked with the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism) and Promoting synergy and alignment in the context of National Adaptation Plans (linked with the LDC Expert Group).
Moving forward, we intend to converge our efforts to support governments and regional organisations in development and implementation of integrated plans, promote peer learning, and organise joint advocacy events and workshops.
4. What do you see as the next 1-2 priorities to tackle so that we can mainstream early action and take it to scale?
The real integration happens at the level of implementation. Hence, the next steps are to extend CRM approaches to sectors that are most at-risk to climate change. We have already developed a CRM toolkit on nature-based solutions and health, and we are now focusing on the agri-food sector. We are also localising the tools to better understand community risks and priority actions. We will launch a new CRM tool to better understand and apply climate information for risk reduction actions at different timescales.
The ambition of Early Warning for All, to cover everyone with early warnings by 2027, requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. Risks are increasingly getting complex and we cannot afford to fragment institutional efforts on early warning. A common policy basis, which is what CRM is about, helps convene these diverse efforts for a common cause.
Read more at: www.undrr.org/crm
