Building resilience against biological hazards and pandemics: COVID-19 and its implications for the Sendai Framework

2020 has become the year of coping with English coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This year was to be the “super year” for sustainability, a year of strengthening global actions to accelerate the transformations required for achieving the 2030 agenda. It is argued that 2020 can and must be a year of both. Thus there is a call for more utilisation of the health-emergency disaster risk management (Health-EDRM) framework to complement current responses to COVID-19 and the patent risk of similar phenomena in the future. To make this case, the study examines current responses to COVID-19 and their implications for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). The paper argues that current mechanisms and strategies for disaster resilience, as outlined in the SFDRR, can enhance responses to epidemics or global pandemics such as COVID-19. In this regard, there are several general and DRR-specific recommendations that are highlighted here. These recommendations concern knowledge and science provision in understanding disaster and health-related emergency risks, the extension of disaster risk governance to manage both disaster risks and potential health-emergencies, particularly for humanitarian coordination aspects; and the strengthening of community-level preparedness and response.