In the last few years, the world has profoundly changed as have the opportunities for social, infrastructural, and economic recovery. The impacts of the pandemic have been compounded by other natural hazards, conflicts, and crises.  This complex situation has set back efforts to reduce poverty, develop economies and achieve the SDGs.

The Americas and the Caribbean is one of the regions that has mobilized unprecedented resources to respond to and recover from the complex and interconnected set of threats.  The challenge is to ensure that this mobilization is used as effectively as possible to improve recovery practices to build resilience to future hazards in a sustainable and inclusive manner.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, significant knowledge, tools, and processes were developed in the region regarding better recovery practices. Increasingly, governments have gathered around new methodologies and ways to protect recovery investments after a disaster. However, these experiences are happening in an isolated and fragmented fashion. They would benefit from collective learning and exchange mechanisms for speeding up innovative ways of tackling recovery challenges in a context where the uncertainty and impacts of systemic risks will play a more significant role in the national development agendas.

Post-pandemic recovery presents a sterling opportunity for public and private sector actors, as well as academics and community organizations, to further bolster/transform their ecosystems for deeper collaboration to BBB and promote/establish a resilient and inclusive society.      

Session objectives

The overall objective of this plenary session is to promote knowledge sharing and experience exchange to advance the practice of post disaster recovery with a comprehensive approach. It is expected to provide a broad overview of key approaches used in the Americas and the Caribbean region to prepare, assess, plan and implement recovery processes, thereby contributing to strengthening resilience and decreasing the impact of disasters on lives and livelihoods.

Specific objectives are:

1. To discuss how recovery opportunities and challenges have changed in the aftermath of the pandemic, and in light of other compounding natural, social and economic issues.
2. To identify opportunities for more sustainable, inclusive and resilient recovery.
3. To seek how science and technology advancements can be further integrated into recovery process.

This high-level session will address the implication of disaster risk reduction in the instruments and mechanisms for public planning and budgeting, private initiative and Public-Private Partnerships, offering elements of analysis on the new conditions that countries must face in the framework of sustainable finance and sustainability financing, to foster inclusive and resilient development in a context of systemic risk. Experiences, lessons learnt and best practices of different actors in financing disaster risk management for evidence-based sustainable development will be shared. Innovative financing mechanisms for sustainable development will also be proposed, with a focus on disaster risk reduction, prospective disaster risk management and climate action.

In the regional mid-term review report on the implementation of the Sendai Framework, the level of awareness of disaster risk has, to some extent, permeated decision-making beyond conventional DRR actors per se.

Thematic networking and associations in our region have also facilitated a more inclusive whole-of-society approach, whereby alternative sources of knowledge and innovation are becoming increasingly embedded and articulated in the DRR agenda and more influential in disaster risk governance and development planning decision-making to address underlying risk factors.

Recognizes at the same time that a greater participation of specific sectors of the State and of different actors involved is also essential to continue strengthening this governance and the persistent challenges of being able to translate national strategies, frameworks and plans into legislation and action at the national and local level; each sector offers an important ally and key partner for national and local governments in decision-making and policy application, as well as its implementation and monitoring. The private sector offers essential technologies (but must be regularized). Volunteering offers key social protection mechanisms (we saw this with COVID) and facilitates the application of technologies and generates necessary subnational and local behavior changes. Civil society collaborate through science and technology to improve the conditions so that the disaster does not occur - early warning systems is one but also multipurpose green spaces, livelihoods that allow mitigation or adaptation to climate change, apps that allow visualization and communication for community actions with companies and governments.

Session objectives

1. Identify the different mechanisms that allow the articulation between the government, the private sector and civil society organizations (CSOs) and strengthen inclusive risk governance.
2. Identify innovations in policies and coordination between the government sector, the private-business sector and civil society to reduce the different drivers of risk
3. Determine local and national strategies that highlight good practices and promote articulation between sectors.

This session will directly contribute to the Sendai Framework goal of substantially increasing the availability of and people's access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessment by 2030. It will also provide new perspectives for the application of the SDG 17.6 by enhancing North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation, and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through a better coordination between existing mechanisms, particularly at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism.

Session objectives

The general objective of the session is to address the deficiencies of the science-policy nexus in Disaster Risk Reduction, and to explore how decision-making processes can be improved through inputs from science and technology.

Among the specific objectives of this plenary session, the following can be proposed:

1. Review the state of applied scientific knowledge in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in particular applied to disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change
2. Address gaps in current decision-making processes to address underlying drivers of disaster risks and inform prevention and adaptation practices
3. Suggest innovative approaches to make better use of available scientific knowledge and data as well as technology to enable timely disaster prevention and design more effective early warning systems.
4. Identify best practices in the science-policy nexus applied to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and propose a path forward in LAC.