Colombo declaration of multi-hazard eary warning and disaster risk reduction: 2020

This declaration was adopted at a recent "International Symposium on Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Disaster Risk Reduction" which brought together over 2,500 participants from the Sri Lankan government, private sector, non-governmental organisations and higher educational institutions. The declaration expresses deep concern at the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate related challenges and the continuing impact of disasters, resulting in an unacceptable loss of human lives and livelihoods, displacement of people and environmental and economic damages in Sri Lanka and across the world.

The declaration also recognises the devastating impact of COVID-19 around the world and the threat posed by future epidemics and pandemics. It stresses the need to focus on developing a holistic understanding of societal challenges, risks and drivers, like poverty, climate change, loss of protective eco-systems and biodiversity, rapid urbanisation and unplanned development in hazard prone areas, socio-economic inequalities and population growth along with their interactions. It also underlines the need to build resilience against all hazards, including emerging and unforeseen hazards such as biological, human animal transfer of diseases, hormones and micro plastics.

The declaration sets out fifteen key priorities and actions that must be reflected by stakeholders in order to address these challenges. It includes a strong call for higher education and science to support the understanding of disaster risk and promote risk-informed decisions and risk sensitive planning from the local to the global levels. The goal is to strengthen evidence base approach in support of the implementation of the new framework.