PLENARY SESSION: Science and technology for integrated disaster risk management and climate change adaptation

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.