Report on the EU approach to resilience and disaster risk reduction in developing countries: learning from food security crises

Author(s): Mitchell, Gay
Number of pages: 15 p.

This report addresses the need for a strong commitment to advancing resilience and disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies. To advance the resilience approach significantly, the report calls for a strong integration of resilience measures into development and humanitarian programming. It also recognises the challenges posed by climate change and emphasises that climate change adaptation needs to be taken into account in resilience and DRR initiatives.

The key focus of this report is on the most vulnerable, poorest and marginalised populations who have high exposure to risks, while on a broader scale targeting fragile and crisis-prone countries. It calls for a long-term resilience approach to target the root causes of risk and significantly reduce underlying risk factors. It also stresses: (i) the importance of all actors in building resilience, particularly local authorities who can play a central role in coordinating and sustaining a multi-level, multi-stakeholder platform to promote resilience and DRR in the region; (ii) that the resilience approach must focus on enhancing food security and nutrition must be systematically incorporated into programming decisions; and (iii) that there should be strong efforts made to tackle inefficient uses of funding for DRR and resilience activities and duplication of efforts in this regard.

Looking forward, the report emphasises that DRR and resilience need to be strongly integrated into the post-2015 framework. It considers that the post-MDG and post-HFA processes need to take account of the outcomes of the current frameworks and address the experiences faced by those most affected by disasters and crises.