Discussion Room on Risk Informed Development

Welcome everyone!  It is a great pleasure to jump-start with you today this global consultation on shaping a comprehensive UNDP Offer on Risk-Informed Development that will run from 18 January – 5 February 2021. Together with my colleague Holly Mergler, who is a Policy Specialist working on Social & Environmental Standards (UNDP/BPPS), we will be moderating the first week of this global consultation. My name is Angelika Planitz, and I am Global Team Leader for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDP/CB).

As the experts in your fields, we invite you to share your comments, experiences and reflections on the questions we have posted in the discussion room. The consultation questions have been grouped into three themes: 1. Rationale & Concepts, 2.  Lessons Learned & Support Needs; and 3. Opportunities. In your responses, please indicate which themes/questions you are commenting on. Also, please don’t forget to introduce yourselves to facilitate the networking aspect of this consultation. A language translation function can be found on the upper right corner of the SparkBlue page if needed.

We hope the discussion room enables us to have an open and informal discussion where we can drill deeper into how we can firmly establish a risk-informed development approach in UNDP. The discussion room will remain open for three weeks and the Disaster Risk Reduction & Recovery for Building Resilience Team (DRT) will produce a synopsis of the discussion at the end. 

So please share your comments freely. Also, please help us build a strong cross-practice exchange by connecting to this consultation experts working on different strands of risk management, including conflict prevention, health, environment, governance, climate change, disaster risk reduction, etc..

We look forward to hearing from you!

Angelika Planitz & Holly Mergler 

Thank you for the very informative presentations as well as the stimulating discussion around the launch of the consultations on UNDP's risk-informed development offer. 

For development practitioners (within the UN, NGO, Governments or others), the rationale for such an offer seems quite self-explanatory, especially considering the multitude of risks that we are exposed to but also their negative consequences on societal wellbeing/human progress (as articulated by the SDGs). 

Within UNDP too the message that "if it is not risk-informed it is not sustainable" has always been more than just a tagline. It has been both the guiding principle for many of us working on disaster risk reduction and climate change issues as well as one of the strongest arguments in advocating for development planning and investment decisions, whether by governments or other non-state actors, to incorporate data/evidence related to risks (largely disaster and climate-related ones) for both greater development impact as well as the efficient use of resources.

What seems to make this offer more relevant and yet challenging is the recent realization of how these risks can interact with each other in uncertain ways with implications across geographical scales (as demonstrated by COVID19, but also concurrent and successive crises in different parts of the world).

Given the complexities around translating the concepts of systemic and interrelated risks into a single solution that could be readily made available to practitioners, perhaps UNDP could consider pursuing multiple "tracks" in parallel (many of which were discussed by various speakers at the launch webinar):

1) At the global level investing in Creating the knowledge and evidence base to support such an offer, where data on multiple risks are collected, analysed (to capture their interactions), and disseminated to inform early warning and early action - almost as a global public good - that especially countries and stakeholders with low capacities can still benefit from, in both mitigating the impacts as well as building resilience in the longer term 

2) Strengthening capacities at the regional and national levels to create the enabling environment through institutions, policies, and legal frameworks that allow for/mandate integration of risks in national development planning and budgeting processes (also supported by the evidence base mentioned above, but also at regional and national levels)

3) Using existing approaches (whether disaster recovery using principles of settlement planning & owner-driven housing or stabilization initiatives) that take into account multiple risks (if not all) as well as multiple dimensions of development as entry points to incrementally build a "multi-risk approach" at the local level 

Risk informed development is not only the approach to be practiced by DRR professionals in UNDP and elsewhere. This should be integrated and become part of the DNA of UNDP and other institutions working on disasters, resilience and risks. UNDRR and UNFCCC are two system wide institutions, which refer to risk-informed development in their respective global frameworks: Sendai Framework for DRR and Paris Agreement.

Which are the key areas of consideration in order to institutionalize risk-inform development at all levels? Perhaps common areas reflected in both frameworks are below.

1. Availability of technical capacity and expertise in risk informed decision-making

2. Relevant legal and institutional basis for systematic integration of risk aspects into decision making processes.

3. Improved data collection and digitally available data for risk informed decision making.

Please share your experience with the points above and needs in your location (HQ/regional or country level).

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for inviting contributions from sister agencies to this interesting dialogue.

Please find some reflections and suggestions in the enclosed.

With best wishes for 2021 and congratulations still to Ronald for your new assignment (we met in ancient times at the Panama RP, I think it was in 2009 :-).

Lars

Contribution to UNDP dialogue on riskinformed programming (20 Jan 21).docx21.7 KB

Thanks to the few braves who have rushed ahead and contributed to this consultation. I hope many others will follow suit soon. As you may have seen, we launched this online consultation on Monday in a UNDP webinar with a panel of speakers presenting our different practice areas. They pondered over risk-informed development (RID) and what it means for UNDP and our partners.

Here a few snippets from the webinar: Joseph D'Cruz mentioned that at a time when our world is increasingly characterized by risks and uncertainty, the management of risks is becoming a bigger priority than mere economic growth. This will make the RID offer very compelling for our members states. Samuel Rizk reminded us of the different types of risks we need to be able to manage ranging from political risks, to programmatic risks and reputational risks. He cautioned of transferring risks to local actors when working in conflict settings and stressed on the role of donors in sharing the operational risks with UNDP and the need of a common accountability. Noting that health risks cut across other types of risks such as economic, environmental, social, and geopolitical, Mandeep Dhaliwal , stressed the value proposition for UNDP to pursue multi-sectoral and integrated approaches to analyze and manage risks through a RID offer. Ramraj Narasimhan 's presentation on risk-informed recovery in Nepal illustrated how recovery provided the opportunity to address existing risks and inequalities in the society by focusing on the most vulnerable households, due to blanket approaches of the government and biased social systems.

We also had many interesting comments from the audience: Sophie Baranes  reminded us of the work of our partners in RID, such as UNICEF, the IASC, or OECD. Pablo Ruiz emphasized the need for strengthening capacities in scenario building and assessing future risks and reminded us that we already have many useful tools across our different practice areas that we can build upon. Glaucia Boyer mentioned the risks of violating human rights and that UNDP works under UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy to manage and mitigate risks of supporting national security institutions. Amanthi Wickramasinghe stressed the need to also look at internal UNDP challenges for moving ahead with a more robust risk-informed development agenda and culture so that we can work in more efficient and smarter ways to make risk-informed development possible. The recording of this webinar can be found on the landing page of the consultation at https://www.sparkblue.org/group/153/about.

Hi colleagues,

I would like to take the idea of partnership and “ahead together” one step further and emphasize the role of international finance institutions (IFIs). In my experience of cooperating with IFIs in the Western Balkans and beyond, IFIs see risk to development differently than UNDP. They are, however, an essential component of development, and we must not put our hopes to governments to “factor in” risks to development, without IFIs.

IFIs at present assess risks through economic lens (project viability, return on investment during life cycle, contribution to wages, GDP, etc. as well as savings generated), and through environmental lens through GHG emission reduction, % of environment contribution, etc.

But they do not asses risk from, say, more frequent extreme weather events, earthquakes, mass population movements, conflict, etc. some would say it is intangible. I beg to differ.

Risk informed development should take place before concrete individual actions are devised.

Therefore, the idea of partnership, not walking alone or “better together”, we need to involve IFIs to develop capacities for risk informed decision making.

However, in order to do so, IFIs will ask us to make the idea concrete and, if this idea of cooperating with IFIs has any merit, I volunteer to work on it further.

Thanks for initiating this discussion and quite an informative Webinar to launch it. It provided the perfect launch pad!

Some very interesting thoughts have already been shared by colleagues. I would like to focus more directly on questions comprising Theme-1. I think while unpacking this we need to challenge ourselves and be a bit provocative. Let’s look at the challenges or barriers in the first instance.

Of the principles underlying the 2030 Agenda, ‘risk-informed development’ is perhaps the among the less well understood ones, especially in terms of “how to”, though often talked about. While lot more has been done to analyze what ‘Leave No One Behind’ principle entails yet focus on ‘risk-informed development’ has been less conspicuous—although both are outcomes of the same process. Practitioners like us tend to look it solely from our own thematic lens. As such, it poses a challenge to us as well as to others.

First, the need to understand it better is not just for our thematic area, our projects, our policy pronouncements but to make our counterparts (national, sub-national, sectoral and community levels) understand better, internalize well and advance effectively. The need might be to go beyond the prisms of our thematic workstreams (fine even if we indulge ourselves and lay hand on our piece of the pie!) and endeavor to bring in other imperatives. Being able to work across both will determine our success or otherwise.

Second, many a times, RiD (means ‘risk-informed development’ – can’t help not using an acronym!) implies that there is ‘development’ and then there are ‘risks’ and we have to make them speak to each other. This artificial distinction gives the impression that there is development side of the equation and then at the opposite end is the risk community. It is NOT to seen as an add-on i.e. something coming from outside or being told by someone to be done. It has to be implicit in the development processes itself and at all levels. Looked at in a simplistic manner like this makes the development entities see red and creates some push back. Inability to position it as a value-add to their work (cherry on the cake) is deterring its advancement to a large extent.

Three, in my view, RiD is one area where development partners and practitioners might need to play on two fronts simultaneously i.e. the policy (organizational i.e. national, sectoral etc.) and programmatic (application). We tend to overtly focus on the first and wait out till it is institutionalized. Nothing wrong with that. But it might be equally rewarding if some actual demonstration of the benefits can be shown even in a small way at local level to create the conviction it needs at policy level. A small fraction of programmatic resources invested in this direction have the potential to yield much higher and valuable dividends.

Four, what do we understand by ‘development’? Only hard infrastructure? How about social norms, culture, mindsets and behavioral patterns? How does one risk-inform the fossil fuel centric socio-economic sectors or the societal fetish for fuel guzzling SUVs? Hence, perhaps we need to think about bringing in dimensions like natural resource management, environment protection, social protection measures et. el. to address the ‘soft’ side of our development processes including livelihoods, way of life and more.

With regard to the rationale for RiD, resilience is key to developmental sustainability. But will it be wrong to say that resilience and sustainability are conjoined twins? Hence, at one level, does risk-informing development again looks at both separately? Does it mean that there is development and there is risk and the former needs to be protected from the latter? It is well recognized that development itself is a key risk driver. This implies that all ‘development’ needs to be risk-averse even if situated in no-risk zone, not exposed to any identified risks etc. so as to ensure that this development does not generated or trigger newer risks.

More on ‘how to’ side of the equation in due course but hope of some these points will help the thinking about RiD…….I mean risk-informed development.

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for the interesting discussion and comments. 

I want to refer to UNDP's Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), which was updated in 2019. It calls us to be forward-looking and manage the effect of uncertainties (threats and opportunities) on objectives with the ultimate purpose to ensure foresight and responsible, risk-informed decision-making, thereby maximizing gains while avoiding unnecessary losses.

I believe Risk-Informed Development should follow the same principles articulated in the ERM policy as it forms the institutional backbone of UNDP's approach to risk management. Adopting an integrated approach to risks is critical to developing a holistic understanding of the development or operational challenges and the potential solutions. Such an approach helps drive integrated solutions, particularly to enhance resilience and risk-informed development. 

Sharing with you a video on UNDP's Risk Management which highlights three lessons learned to avoid common mistakes. 

thank you,

Dear colleagues, 

Thanks for facilitating this good discussion!

I'd like to build on comments by Rajeev, Ronald, Reshmi and others to further unpack some of the RID service lines that UNDP can expand. I'd also like to highlight linked initiatives being rolled out by UNDP and partners.

1) on data: UNDP is partnering with UNEP, Oxford and others to advance some of the different types data, information, and knowledge needed to inform RID action. This includes economic modelling, cost-benefit assessments, and techniques such as Targeted Scenario Analysis, as well as national and community-level household survey data. Some of this data is captured in UNDP's Data Futures Platform, the PAGE Covid Observatory, and the UN Biodiversity Lab. There is much potential to expand this work in ways that more directly inform RID policies and decision-making. Tools that offer analysis and insights are of course more valuable than the data itself.  

2) on financing: longer-term RID policy and programming support also requires most consistent and sufficient flows of investment. This includes financing solutions that blend public, private, domestic and international sources. Up-front investments are needed to fund data-gathering and analysis and the institutional infrastructure and capacities need to apply it. Financing is also needed over the longer-term to ensure continuity across national and sectoral initiatives that go beyond the short-term duration of most traditional projects and political administration cycles and align with the time span of the SDGs other global SD frameworks, and national Visons and Strategies.

3) Dedicated cross-sectoral teams are needed both with UNDP and in the partners institutions we support  to ensure that critical synergies are made within and across traditional sectoral entry points for RID policy-making. These include initiatives designed to advance One Health. Inclusive Green Economy, and Circular Economy approaches, among others. The Sida-UNDP Global Programme on Environmental and Climate Change is advancing such integrated programming in nine pilot countries: Colombia, Haiti, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Myanmar, Nepal, Ethiopia and Uganda. This work focuses on such RIF-relevant cross-cutting themes as social and environmental standards, gender mainstreaming, data, and partnerships.   

With the recent pandemic COVID-19 affecting the entire world, the discussion on risk informed development is very pertinent. The webinar was very informative, and the speakers stimulated good discussion. Several colleagues have already provided excellent inputs to this discussion.

The world has become more complex due to significant achievements by humankind on various fronts which have provided us huge benefits and posed new challenges at the same time. With the increased connectivity across the world in general, it is becoming challenging to comprehend and understand the risks we face and how new development manifests risks and poses new challenges. Ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and the 2004 tsunami disasters are just few examples of the magnitude and complexity of these events and these are reminders that we need to continuously improve our understanding of the risks we face and anticipate the future risks to safeguard development. It is this context of the rapid change and uncertainty that requires UNDP to focus on risk-informed development.      

As any development continues to evolve and manifest with time based on its interaction with complex development processes, it is important for UNDP to continuously try to improve the understanding of the ‘knowns’ and ‘unknowns’ all the time to safeguard development through appropriate measures.  Therefore, ‘risk informed development’, in simple terms, must include continuous improvement of our understanding of the risks we face and the future risks we are likely to face in every area of development on all fronts. 

There are numerous challenges or barriers to risk-informed development. Our institutional and legislative frameworks are not designed to identify and address risks. Technical capacities for analyzing current risks are not adequate and are not uniformly available across countries and sectors. Much of the education and development is siloed in disciplines and sectors who typically do not connect with each other in understanding and solving issues. Lack of coordination across countries in understanding the risks and addressing them systematically. Moreover, development is rapidly becoming more complex due to new technologies and rapid changes it is bringing in the communities and societies on social, economic, cultural, psychological fronts.

Hi all and thanks to Angelika, Rajeev, Rajesh and the Sparkblue team for getting me well connected.

I am now living in Egypt in Cairo, but remain engaged with issues in Asia, and a bit connected on issues in Africa and the Arab States, as well as exclusively in this country, mainly in partnership with NGOs and the Red Crescent system.

Very happy to connect with all of you and this debate and engagement with Risk Informed Development. As many are aware, I have been advocating and practicing Mainstreaming of Disaster Reduction into Development while at ADPC, and since leaving have remained engaged with several of you and slightly broadened my horizon to cover Mainstreaming Resilience, Adaptation and Sustainability into not just development but into peoples everyday life, an ambitious set of actions but in advancement of a worthy aim. I believe also that we must work within and under the SDG umbrella and aim to see how resilience and adaptation help contribute to the SDGs and the various challenge they face.

will elaborate a bit further after carefully reading all your posts, but am happy to get feedback on this perspective and its alliance with RID.

Warmly,

Loy Rego

Dear Colleagues,

I’d like to share my thoughts that emerged recently as I have been trying to broker private sector partnerships with a DRR project. My comment responds to the question of Theme 3, point 5: “What are the key areas of support or service lines which a UNDP Offer on RID should include to boost our work at country level?” My suggestion is a SDG investor map that focuses only on the disaster risk reduction and recovery space.

This investor map will have the following impact:

1. Change the mindset of the private sector which believes that business opportunities in the DRR space are primarily in business-to-government (B2G).
2. Showcase DRR business cases that are making impact in making a country more risk informed, outside CSR or government procurement engagement
3. Attract private finance and accelerate B2B deals in the DRR space, which in turn will make the entire DRR sector thicker as public and private sector investments are more intertwined

For your further reference: The DRR and recovery market is estimated to be around US$120 billion (2020) and is expected to grow for the reasons we all know. DRR businesses have multiple customer segments spanning public and private sectors and B2G is only a part of the picture. With the map, we can identify sub segments where private sector’s interest and development goals are in alignment. Through this process, we can broker B2B business deals and UNDP’s value-add could be to show development impact. Similarly, in the sub-segments where private sector’s interest is low but with high alignment with development goals (‘white space’), we can facilitate subsidies or broker government support (B2G).

Had this type of map existed, it may have helped our potential private sector partners better understand business opportunity spaces as well as potential business models outside the government procurement and CSR opportunities.

Thank you,

Satoko

Chers collègues,

Je voudrais revenir sur les  défis ou les obstacles qui ont fait que le risque ne soit pas tenu en considération dans le processus de planification du développement. Le premier défi a été la qualité de l'information à tenir compte. Dans plusieurs de cas, l'information a été trop incertaine, trop scientifique, complexe et mal communiqué pour pouvoir attirer l'attention des décideurs ou dégager une information qui puisse éclairer une prise de déceision de manière objective. Le deuxième défi a été le manque d'appropriation de cette information du risque de ceux qui devraient l'intégrer dans le processus de planification pour le développment. Comme l'incertitude était trop élevée et la propabilité de l'occurrence du danger est floue, pourquoi tenir compte de cette information. Le troisième défi a été de communiquer l'information du risque aux différntes parties prenantes provenant des secteurs différents de développement. Car dans la plupart des cas, l'information  apparait plus difficile pour les utilisateurs qui ne sont pas du domaine. Ici, je citerais par exemple l'information sur les risques lié aux changements climatiques, à la prévision des inondations, etc.

Ma proposition serait de mettre un accent sur un accompagnment (faire avec, faire faire et laisser faire) des entités/organisations/institutions chargées de produire les informations du risque. Ceci devrait etre basé sur un plan d'acquisition des compétence (PAC) plutot qu'un renforcement des capacités. En effet, les ressources humaines de ces entités devraient avoir des compétences nécessaires pour produire une information de qualité sur risque et pouvoir la communiquer aux différents types d'utilisateurs et susciter son adoption et son intégration dans le processus de développement.

L'information de qualité sur le risque permettrait une appropriation et une intégration dans la prise de décision quotidienne et ainsi améliorerait une prévoyance des risques meme au niveau des couches plus vulnérables.

Dear Colleagues, 

To help shape UNDP’s Offer on Risk-Informed Development and the next UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025, DRR focal points from UNDP Country Offices (COs) in the Asia-Pacific region and the UNDP BRH DRT (DRR and Recovery for Building Resilience Team) had two days of discussions on Risk-Informed Development (RID). The discussions were held during 21-22 January 2021 and included a total of 84 participants. Recordings from the discussions can be found at: https://undp-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/r/personal/sooin_bang_undp_org/Documents/DRR%20focal%20points%20discussion%20on%20RID?csf=1&web=1&e=lfJSnl

During the discussions, it was highlighted that UNDP DRT should focus on providing meaningful support to governments and relevant ministries to help them understand and apply Risk-Informed Development approaches in their longer-term and annual planning processes. UNDP’s support goes beyond supporting countries to mention DRR and CCA in their development plans and also goes beyond merely ‘projectizing’ Risk-Informed Development (e.g. for RID housing). Instead UNDP DRT provides deeper support to countries on systems change, transformational change, and behavior change. This support can be further strengthened in two ways:

Firstly UNDP DRT should collaborate with different ministries, including Ministries of Finance and Ministries of Planning. There has been a growing awareness of systemic risks amongst governments and of the need for approaches that take into account these complex risks: in other words, Risk-Informed Development approaches. However, in practice, UNDP DRT have collaborated mostly with NDMAs/NDMOs. Cooperating with Ministries of Finance and Ministries of Planning can help influence government systems to address multiple and systemic risks, and sustain interventions that are provided by UNDP DRT. For instance, the UNDP Fiji CO is working closely with the Ministry of Economy to help the government achieve better and more Risk-Informed Development through its project titled ‘Governance for Resilient Development in the Pacific’ (more information can be found from the link above). Furthermore, during a disaster recovery, collaboration between government sectors can increase understanding of Risk-Informed Development and help their recovery efforts to be more resilient to systemic and multiple risks.

Secondly, UNDP’s Offer on Risk-Informed Development and the UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025 should help COs, regional hubs, and the HQ to integrate Risk-Informed Development approaches across our portfolios. At the country level, DRR support, such as early and long-term recoveries and PDNAs, are often implemented in an ad-hoc manner and disconnected from each other, hindering sustainable and coherent support to countries. In addition, UNDP DRT and more broadly UNDP have not yet been able to fully integrate Risk-Informed Development approaches in their support. Instead, support has largely remained siloed within one of UNDP’s dedicated risk management practices, such as disaster risk reduction, conflict prevention, or climate change adaptation. The next UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025 will need to overcome this limitation and ensure that Risk-Informed Development can fully permeate the organization’s development practices.
 

Dear Colleagues,

First of all, congratulations on launching this global discussion as part of the efforts to enhance UN system contributions towards achieving sustainable, inclusive and peaceful development.

I fully agree with comments shared by colleagues on partnerships, and would like to emphasize the need to focus on expanding collaboration with partners to make RID work more effective and knowledge-based. In this complex and dynamic world, different actors may act as partners and offer win-win solutions towards addressing complexities of present-day development.

Non-state actors

My recently completed assessments of the UN system engagement with the private sector and NGOs have revealed that there are enormous opportunities for partnerships and collaboration between the UN and non-state actors, that are not realized due to very cautious and overly bureacratic procedures for partnering, limited menu of instruments suitable to external partners, and other numerous factors.

In the context of RID, NGOs may play a more prominent role in offering local knowledge and locally-based solutions to address risks and vulnerabilities. The private sector is often the cause of risks and inequalities, hence businesses should be turned into partners, who value and support sustainable development solutions. UNDP, as the rest of the UN system, should take more pro-active approach to optimizing the benefits of closer collaboration with non-state actors. 

I agree with Satoko and Stanislav, that UN/UNDP should enhance partnerships with the private sector. Besides obvious potential financial benefits, partnerships with the private sector may also be formed to strengthen local businesses and create decent employment in risk-prone communities;  provide equal access to market information; share data and scientific innovation and advances developed by private businesses; and be part of sustainable business practices, corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, etc.

UN and IFIs

As commented by Lars, inter-agency collaboration and joint programming among various UN agencies is essential for effective UN work at global and country-level and One UN risk-integrated processes. Joint UN policy dialogue is more effective as compared to individual agency-specific interactions.

As was highlighted by Armen, collaboration with the international financial institutions is important, both in terms of potential synergies and complementary nature of development interventions in the context of achieving the complexity of SDGs, as well as in terms of forming and making available development finance offers, joint funding mechanisms and programmes.   

Research and academia institutions

There are good examples of the collaboration between the UN agencies and the research institutions, think tanks and academia in risk assessments, context analysis and development of innovative solutions. There is a huge potential to expand this collaboration, moving from one-time partnerships (e.g. to develop a study, risk assessment or specific thematic research), to longer-term, continuous engagement to generate scientific, evidence-based approaches to RID.

With kindest regards,

Serdar

Dear colleagues,

The UN Women DRR team is thanking you for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion.

Please find our comments herewith:

Theme 1:  Q3 – Challenges or barriers to risk-informed development

An important challenge in risk-informed development is to ensure that the gendered dimensions of risk are adequately identified and addressed.  Gender inequality is a major risk driver contributing to disproportionate risks for many women and girls worldwide.  Discrimination and unequal access to opportunities, natural resources, finance, technology, knowledge, and mobility and discriminatory social, cultural, and legal norms and practices increase women’s vulnerability to hazards.  Without addressing the underlying root causes of vulnerability, including gender inequality, gender relations, and power structures, risk-informed development will not adequately foster the changes (including the empowerment, leadership, and participation of women) needed to build resilience. Further, risk informed development planning, which is not founded on the needs of all groups, or which fails to consider gender and age dimensions may actually increase social inequalities.

The lack of disaggregated data and analysis is a key challenge to understanding disproportionate risks and tackling underlying vulnerabilities.  The systematic collection, collection, analysis, and use of sex, age, and disability disaggregated data (SADDD) is essential for understanding the granularity and differential impact between different groups, which is needed to inform gender responsive and inclusive risk informed development decision making, policy formulation, and practice.

Theme 3 -  Opportunities

The UN Women DRR & Resilience Team deeply appreciates the excellent partnership we have been enjoying with the UNDP disaster and climate resilience colleagues. Thanks to joint programming between our two agencies across the globe we have been able to contribute to strengthening resilience to climate change and disasters amongst those left furthest behind, many of whom are women and girls. But there is still much to do. We see a lot of opportunity in joining forces with UNDP to boost the voice and agency of women at high disaster risk and/or affected by disasters in more regions and countries across the globe, providing knowledge, resources and capacity where it is most needed. We also believe that there is opportunity in more strategically partnering up with UNDP and other UN agencies working on risk-informed development to engender global DRR and climate processes, frameworks and systems so as to leverage women leadership and agency for a more risk-informed and thus sustainable and resilient future.

We thank you for the excellent cooperation we enjoy with you and wish you all the best for this important consultation.

Dear All,

Happy to contribute to this very interesting discussion. I am an environment policy specialist working in BPPS/RSCLAC, in Panama. I would like to address the specific questions related to: 1- Identifying key areas of support or service lines that should be included in the tools applied for Risk Informed development at the country level and the service lines required at the Country Office and provided by the GPN; and 2- The question which requests suggested approaches that can be recommended to contribute to Risk Informed Development.

I believe,

UNDP’s Social and Environmental Standards and safeguards policy (UNDP SES) should be considered as a key risk management tool. The UNDP SES is an internal tool that has been developed in line with UN System principles and standards of International Human rights, gender equality and empowerment, indigenous rights, cultural heritage, community health and safety, workers’ rights, occupation health and safety, ecosystem sustainability, climate change and disaster risk reduction, energy efficiency and pollution control.  By applying the UNDP SES early in the design phase, and iteratively throughout the project cycle, unintended risks that may occur related to these UN principles and standards, as a result of the implementation of a programme or project, can be avoided, reduced, mitigated, and effectively managed. Consequently, it is a key risk management tool. This Policy is based on a precautionary approach, providing a mechanism to identify, assess and manage risks to people and the environment early in project development … Much like the World Bank's Safeguard policy and those implemented by IFI’s. UNDP, through this policy UNDP guarantees that its projects are accountable for any unforeseen negative impacts that may occur as a result of implementation. The UNDP is held accountable to complying with these standards by an independent Accountability Mechanism and has stakeholders redress mechanisms to ensure grievances are heard and resolved.

GPN and Country Office capacities are currently being built to apply this corporate policy, so project developers and managers are still not fully familiar with its application so there is still a lack of systematic application, despite this being a corporate policy. However, current momentum within UNDP is leading to strengthening these capacities. In some cases, some grey areas remain, for example, in relation to the type of project it applies. One example is the crisis response project type, including DRR. Given the multiplicity of sector based risk management tools and approaches already applied by these sectors (environmental marker, gender marker, social assessments, PDNA others etc), the UNDP SES, as a tool that screens all risks across social and environmental sectors, is not applied systematically. A more adapted and practical tool may be needed to apply the UNDP SES to such projects, in addition to increasing awareness by project developers of the benefits of applying the UNDP SES as a single comprehensive tool. There is still discussion about whether the multiplicity of tools that are already applied by these sectors cover the full array of principles and standards that projects should ensure, in addition to the crisis priority areas that the projects themselves seek to address. There is also some doubt about whether the UNDP SES tool is redundant given that it overlaps with certain sector tools, and whether the UNDP SES tool is thorough enough to replace any of these tools. Additionally, crisis response projects, in the initial response phase have an urgent response mechanism, making it unclear how to apply the UNDP SES tool in terms of timing, however, once a crisis response moves into an economic recovery project cycle phase, it aligns more clearly with the project cycle of a development project, enabling a better understanding of how the UNDP SES policy can apply. In response to some of these issues, it should be made clear that the nature of the UNDP SES is to be an easy to use tool that enables to identify, at an early phase and iteratively throughout the project cycle,  through a simple screening process, the potential risks that may occur to the extensive array of fundamental rights. Some tools used by the crisis response sectors are key to develop response projects and cannot be replaced by the UNDP SES, but these tools are not comparable and play a different role. The UNDP SES is a Risk Identification and management tool.

Applying this policy early to projects enables to integrate social and environmental risk management within a project. Since it is applied initially in the design phase, it enables to budget for the management measures required, develop appropriate plans, integrate management and monitoring  requirements within the institutional arrangements,  and integrate needed capacities within project teams. It also helps identify responsibilities of multiple stakeholders in SES Risk Management.  In this regard, it is important to mention that a key element of the SES is the involvement and engagement of multiple stakeholders (directly or indirectly affected) in the risk management cycle (identification, assessment and management). This reinforces the quality of project design, going beyond risk management, because it guarantees the rights of stakeholders to participate, reinforcing UNDP’s participatory approach to development. This redefines stakeholder participation as a right, and less as a project design ‘requirement’. Moreover, this right is guaranteed through an accountability mechanism to which the UNDP SES is bound. Consequently, this policy is not only a risk management policy but a quality assurance policy for UNDP projects and it is embedded in UNDP human rights approach to development.

In addition, the holistic nature of the SES principles and standards, are also a key entry point to mainstreaming the SDGs within the design of projects. Since the array of social and environmental standards that are included in the Policy, also cover the complex array of the SDG thematic areas. The SES tool helps project developers keep in mind that SDGs are interrelated. For example, environment focused projects may have an undesired impact on indigenous rights, cultural heritage, and lead to economic displacement; a health project may impact the quality of water through unforeseen risks as a consequence of hazardous waste management, leading to impacting the health of communities downstream; or a crisis response project may indirectly negatively affect the conservation of key areas needed to ensure the quality and quantity of water in a key watershed which also ensure the livelihoods of forest dwellers and small scale farmers; and through food for work, if appropriate  occupational health and safety measures are not in place for community workers, small scale reconstruction activities may result in human fatalities. The UNDP SES tool is a practical way to integrate SDG considerations within projects. It enables project developers to become aware of issues that pertain to sectors other than those that are the focus of their project. This reinforces the ability to conceive holist projects.

As a practical recommendation, given the existing capacities in applying this policy, by Country Offices and across the institution, it would be very useful to support Country Offices from the GPN and the BPPS in strengthening its application, and to fully capacitate project development specialists and managers, including crisis response project developers and surge teams to apply this policy from the design phase and iteratively through the project cycle, either as a complement to their existing tools, or simply applying it as a quick risk screening and assessment tool, to ensure projects focus on the array of principles and standards that are relevant from a holistic point of view and from the human rights based perspective.

Thanks again for the interesting discussion,

Yours,

Maria Cruz

Hello to everyone my name is Mubin and I work as ARR/programme in UNDP Tajikistan CO. Thanks a lot for organizers of this discussion, which is very timely and needed especially when UNDP is at the stage of renewing its next Strategic Plan. I have been reading with all due interest the inputs from colleagues and by every input I have got convinced that everything is already covered. Nevertheless, also wanted to just complement what have been already mentioned by colleagues on RID based on my experience and observations.

Even though the world is becoming risk based and all development practitioners are increasingly understanding the complex risks, still the development planning and programming at least in UNDP do not adequately consider the risk management or RID or does not act upon those risks, for which UNDP has been criticized. Most of the time risk management is the ritual of ticking the box and signing the SES or simply filling the text bar, which is then visited once or twice a year when the dashboard informs about it.

UNDP is doing a lot renewing its ERM and training its staff on MSP, but also there is a need to change the mindset in terms of the risk management corporately. The current approach on risk management often looks only at negative part of the risk and the term ‘risk’ is accepted as something undesirable or unwanted (such as natural hazards or disasters, consequences of climate change, conflicts, etc). Therefore, in UNDP we are automatically looking into RID from DRR, CC or conflict perspectives. In my opinion this does not constitute risk management, fails to understand emerging complex risks, and ignores the role of development decisions in risk management and do not consider the positive part of the risk management.

RID should allow first start with planning or conceptualizing any developmental offers first from the ‘risk’ point of view and development offer should become a vehicle to reduce the risk, avoid creating risks and build resilience. Risk, resilience, sustainability, and actions need to go hand-in-hand. We should understand that every development choice involves the creation of uncertainty both negative and positive, both threats and opportunities.

For UNDP the RID should become something similar to the planning process and we need to be able to see the two sides of the risk and act based not only on the response, but also based on prevention and insurance. Most of the time we act totally different then it is envisaged in our risk management plans, because when the reality is faced the planned action under risk log are not appropriate or they are totally useless.

Similar to other COs my CO also works on DRR, CC and conflict prevention. We have been able to embed the risk management especially on DRR, CC and conflict prevention in national, regional and district development plans, which allow the RID to be heart for the development process not only at national but also at local level.

One of the lessons learned from our experience is that when the planning is considering the real risk management at the beginning then the communities or beneficiaries are becoming more resilient and informed about the consequences of their development choices and they know how to act with the proper resources both financial and material allocated for that purpose. But still a lot need to be done.

The comparative advantage of UNDP in RID can be its advocacy and partnership that we can leverage both with Government counterparts, CSO/NGOs and private sector to do RID. As UNDP one of the trusted partners for all countries, UNDP can inform government in terms of doing the development choice based on RID, while tapping into IFI or bi-lateral financial resources be it loans or any other financial means and also can mobilize the network of local NGOs/CSO and other active sectors for the advocacy purposes on RID. Thanks and kind regards.

I am thankful to colleagues, who explicitly (Maria) or otherwise (Tim, Rahel, Rajeev, others) referred to the importance of considering and adhering to social and environmental standards (SES).

The key principle that are being promoted by the adherence to the Social and Environmental standards (SES) are resonating with the principles of the Agenda 2030, including the notion of  "Leave No One Behind"; enabling people to exercise their human rights, enjoy gender equality and the livelihoods that are socially and economically sustainable and enable resilience to current and future shocks, risks and vulnerabilities. 

As we move towards implementing the 2030 Agenda, before we secure that "no one is left behind", we need to ensure that we do not push anyone behind.   

There are groups of population whose livelihoods and well-being are unproportionately affected by disasters, conflicts, climate-related events and man-made hazards. The risk-informed development should be pursued with due attention and consideration of those groups of population that become more vulnerable due to the societal norms, the fabric of economic relations in a particular context or setting, or the discriminatory behaviors of other groups of population motivated by  political, religious, social and/or economic factors or traditions.

Analysis of the degree to which different types of risks and shocks affect the most vulnerable parts of population should be considered as potential service line in the framework of the UNDP RID offer. Without this, the emerging tensions, feeling of exclusion, and the vulnerabilities arising from negative effects of different shock, may, in its own turn, become another category of risk that need to be addressed. 

The risk-informed development interventions have to take into account the current situation and potential development among the most vulnerable groups, broadly defined as elderly, single-headed families, women and children in poor communities, indigenous people, people with disabilities, internally displaced people, refugees or migrants, indigenous people, or minority groups, and other vulnerable people who have either limited access to social services, marginalized, or otherwise discriminated. 

With kindest regards,

Serdar

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks colleagues for this timely and rich discussion. I’m Tiina Turunen, Knowledge Management and Partnerships Specialist from the Connecting Business initiative (CBi) Team. I also lead CBi’s work stream on innovation and new technologies.

Looking at this from CBi and the perspective of working with the private sector, this discussion is indeed very relevant for our ongoing and planned work around multi-stakeholder partnerships.

To give a bit of content in terms of what CBi does, in 2020 CBi supported 17 private sector networks across the world to engage in disaster risk reduction, crisis preparedness, response and recovery activities in coordination with their governments and the UN system. The networks responded to COVID-19 as well as 21 other emergencies, ranging from storms to volcanic eruptions to conflicts and displacement. Some private sector networks found themselves responding to multiple crises at the same time, like in Vanuatu, when they were hit by a category five cyclone Harold whilst under COVID-19 lockdown in March. As the traditional humanitarian systems did not work as usual, the local private sector stepped up to support the government. They conducted aerial assessments of the damaged areas and provided support to over 1,000 families affected by the crisis. In the Philippines, the private sector network was responding to a triple crisis in October-November 2020 as Typhoon Goni was followed by Typhoon Vamco, also during COVID-19 response. The private sector network has an Emergency Operations Center, which supports their 61 members in monitoring risks, providing information and coordinating with the national and international crisis management structures. Both of these networks have now operated for several years and they have well-established ways integrating risk in their operations. However, in most countries, this kind of systematic and coordinated engagement of the private sector is not yet the case. We see huge potential in expanding this work and deepening the linkages between different actors.

Risk-informed development is very much at the core of this work. Risk management is usually quite a familiar term for the private sector, however, the level of risk- management maturity varies across industries and across companies. To respond to the current or anticipated level of challenges risk management needs to become even more dynamic. We have seen interesting examples of the private sector networks not only being quite proactive in terms of their own risk-informed thinking, but they have also supported their governments as well as the communities. In many countries where we operate, the larger private sector has worked for many years to support the micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (who often are the most vulnerable ones) in business continuity planning. It is definitely in the core interest of the private sector to also safeguard development and prevent disruption.

Many of the barriers mentioned in the discussion earlier do resonate also from this perspective. The institutional and legislative frameworks are not adequate to identify and address risks and incentivize a systematic approach in addressing them, technical capacities for analyzing and acting upon risks are limited, resources and attention is limited and the siloed approach is still very prevalent. Especially thinking from the perspective of collective private sector action, in most cases the private sector is still seen as a separate entity in this equation but we have seen very encouraging South-South exchanges when we start to work in a new country, showcasing the results in some of the countries who have built these structures over many years, building the capacity of the different actors to understand how to work together, building the trust and finding the best collaboration and coordination mechanisms.

We see many opportunities around this area. CBi mainly works with the local private sector (some networks engage with multinationals, but majority of the members are local private sector) and we think the multi-stakeholder collaboration at the local level is critical in building sustainable mechanisms also in the risk space. I was happy to note many colleagues speaking about data and the potential of technology. Last year, we started a collaboration with the SDG AI Lab, which is also hosted by UNDP, on new technologies, to understand better the potential of new technologies (or sometimes old) for disaster management (whether DRR, preparedness, response or recovery). We want to also look at how better use of data and technologies can help to make the case for prevention and anticipatory action. We are taking a broader perspective to think about this to then define what role the collective private sector networks can play in helping to strengthen the national systems. As part of this exercise, we are also looking to build the capacity or the private sector to better use technologies, like GIS, to use data as a strategic decision-making tool. It has been great to see that many different units and colleagues at UNDP have been interested in this work and we very much welcome collaboration in this area. It was also great to note that a couple of the posts highlighted gender. Last year, we embarked on a study on gender, disaster management and the private sector, which greatly benefitted from the inputs and engagement with Rahel Steinbach  team so it was great to read her inputs above. This process was really an eye-opening exercise for me personally and while I learned a lot, I feel we are at the very beginning of this journey. This year we are continuing that work and building our own internal capacity as well as that of the private sector networks to take a gender sensitive approach in their activities. Climate change is another area where we have been requested more support from the private sector networks and we would welcome collaboration with other UNDP teams on this.

As a last point, it would be great to hear some thoughts from our experts how we could build our internal capacity on risk-informed development more systematically, to be able to better integrate this approach in all our work and better integrate it in the work of our partners.

Many thanks again colleagues for the opportunity to exchange thoughts about this subject and we very much look forward to engaging in this area further with you.

Best regards,

Tiina on behalf of the CBi Team

Dear Angelika and Colleagues,

From UNDP Pacific we are really excited about the prospect of elevating UNDP's offer on risk-informing development (RID). Joseph D'Cruz  opening remark at the webinar was a real game changer placing this agenda on par with economic development and broader SDG achievement.

With this in mind we wanted to share some perspectives based on experiences over the last few years through the Governance for Resilient Development (Gov4Res) project in the Pacific, a regional project exclusively dedicated to working with countries to risk-inform development.

Approaches to risk-informing development

Development-First: engaging countries from the perspective of priority development issues (not just climate change / disasters) is an effective way of creating real entry-points for RID (see policy brief).

Transformational change: risk-informing development planning, budgeting and implementation requires deeper changes in the way in which people, mechanisms and process for development work at all levels. At the heart of this is the Public Financial Management (PFM) system and we have greatly benefited from working with UNDP’s governance team both in the Asia and Pacific on integrating risk into PFM.

Agile: there is no linear formula to risk-informing development because development itself does not pursue a linear and predictable path. The best ‘entry-points’ for RID come from experimental approaches jointly designed with our country partners, laced with continuous reflection, learning and re-design (see blog). We have benefited hugely from UNDP's Accelerator Lab (Johannes Schunter / Zainab Kakal ) in this regards.

UNDP as the 'integrator’: a Comparative Advantage

Finally, having reflected on the discussions above and our collective experiences, I cannot help but to frame UNDP ’s value proposition as an ‘integrator’ in this space Laurel Patterson . UNDP is one of the few agencies that has the ability and agility to harness the right type of evidence-base; to leverage the right level and type of financing (not just climate but also development financing, see blog); to provide the necessary innovation and agility; and technical policy advice to help countries risk-inform development.

Resource mobilization: taking this approach can and has helped UNDP generate significant donor resources in this space in the Pacific and is providing a strategic opportunity for UNDP to also influence development finance to be more risk informed.

Click here (Passcode: k5HcXA1$) for more detail via a facilitated discussion by Sanny Ramos Jegillos  and Sooin Bang  on how we have been trying to convert these concepts of risk-informing development into practical and bankable propositions in Asia-Pacific.

Thank you,

Moortaza on behalf of the UNDP Gov4Res team

Thank you for opening up this discussion, which is highly relevant to the changing landscape in which UNDP is working. It's also great to read the variety of informative points being raised by colleagues.

I have a comment, which may fall out of the specified themes -- apologies! -- related to UNDP's role in risk creation. In much, but not all, of this discussion there is a very well-placed focus on building UNDP's capacity, and that of our government counterparts, in responding in a comprehensive way to the increasing complexity of risk in development settings. While this is incredibly important, there seems to be less focus in taking stock of UNDP's creation of risk. This is referenced helpfully in the introduction to this discussion, and in UNDP's May 2019 report Risk-Informed Development: From Crisis to Resilience, but could possibly be brought further to the fore in defining what RID looks like for UNDP.

While an overly-critical exploration of UNDP's impact on the generation of risk would likely be counterproductive, there might be value in more deeply exploring how our existing ways of working, resource constraints, and organizational incentives create risk in our operations and in the contexts in which we work. Beyond these factors, we work with social and political realities in low and middle income countries that constrain the development decisions we make, leading to trade-offs that can intensify risks. Increasing organizational awareness on this, mapping UNDP's contributions to risk at the country programme level (perhaps through case studies), and crucially providing practical guidance on approaching trade-offs (and learning from them) could result in UNDP being more risk-adaptive in our programming. I'm sure these initiatives are underway, given the broad-based thinking being undertaken on this issue at UNDP, but I thought it might be helpful to emphasize their importance as a component of RID. Thank you!

Dear colleagues, 

Thank you for launching this very important and much needed discussion.

I would like to add a couple of quick points, based on my experience working on "early warning early action" in UNDP for several years now. 

1. We need a clear guidance on risk analysis. When it comes to risk-informed development, the ability to conduct a proper “multidimensional”, or “comprehensive” or “integrated” contextual risk analysis is the key first step. My impression is that, while there is an overall agreement on the overarching strategic principles, we still do not have a recognized UNDP/UN guidance on how to properly do it in practice. There are however some very good products out there (e.g. by the OECD), which we could adapt to UNDP’s priorities and processes.
2. We need to better understand “compound risk”. Similarly, while most of the UN System talks about looking at risks comprehensively, the understanding of how different contextual risks interact with each other can still be improved. UNDP and the wider UN can contribute to further research on this aspect. Existing initiatives need to be strengthened (e.g. INFORM), and UNDP should more strongly engage in new ones – such as the OCHA-WB work on “compound risk”.
3. We need to work across silos. This is evident but, related to above, I do believe we can still improve how we collaborate between teams working on conflict risks and disaster risks, and include those working on health, social cohesion, economics, etc.
4. We need better data and more data literacy. For the above, data is not the answer to everything… but it can help, and should be a foundation of this work – to feed into the understanding of the compound risk, and to create an evidence-based analysis. With our work on the Crisis Risk Dashboards over the past 4 years, we have been promoting this approach of a data-driven, integrated risk analysis, at global, regional and country level – with now more than 25 CRDs (more info here: Early Warning - Crisis Risk Dashboard | SparkBlue). The three challenges and gaps described above remain however, to which we can add the one of data scarcity in many countries. On the other hand, current initiatives within UNDP are very encouraging in this aspect, in particular the Data Strategy and the Data Futures Platform, which builds on and expands the CRD approach and infrastructure. Expanding the data literacy of UNDP staff should be a priority, and it should be accompany the progress on risk analysis skills.

We look forward to further collaboration on these four aspects, and others related to risk-informed development!

Dear Angelika and colleagues,

Many thanks for facilitating this timely discussion. I am contributing my perspectives as an ex-UNDP colleague and current social entrepreneur working to reduce wildfire risk in California. I think it's incredibly important to open up this discussion to private sector partners, so thank you for inviting us. I’ve read all the posts with great interest and would like to contribute three comments and related questions for further thought.

First, I want to start by reiterating something others have already pointed out: this is not a new discussion for UNDP or the UN system. We’re all aware of the many lessons learned from our past discussions and efforts to ‘mainstream’ and ‘integrate’ disaster risk considerations to ‘inform’ development, at least since 2005. It will be important for us to reference what we learned from past discussions and experiences to understand what must be done differently going forward. What can be done to successfully translate lessons from past experiences to inform more agile, responsive, and resilient development programming? How can we constructively build on past experiences to refine our methods and tools for engagement?

Second, not all our past experiences and lessons will apply to the new era, post COVID-19. We know that the grand challenge of our time is to reduce vulnerability to complex social, economic, and environmental disaster risks, synchronously, across geographies, sectors, and scales. It’s also evident that our shared definition of ‘development’ is changing, and will continue to do so over the next decades. So it’s important to ask, what is UNDP’s theory of change? If we collectively achieve ‘risk-informed development’, what will the world look like in 2025, or 2030? It’s helpful to reimagine our ideal future state and backcast from there. The more vivid our reimagining, the more agile our mechanisms.

Third, as crises converge, so must we. Reducing vulnerability of systems, infrastructure, and communities will require bringing together diverse forms of knowledge, from across disciplines, geographies, and scales. However, due to persistent disciplinary and practice silos, true convergence in disaster research, policy, and programs, is yet to happen. Also, we don’t always come together in inclusive, respectful, and empowering ways to center the experiences and practices of people on the frontline of disaster impacts. How can UNDP offer agile CARE — collaboration, accountability, responsiveness, and empowerment — in engaging with diverse partners, across geographies, sectors, and scales?  But this is not just a question for the UN system, of course. At Wonder Labs, we are advocating for a more caring 'Policy, People, Places approach' to governing wildfire risk reduction in California. 

All the best with this important work! I really look forward to seeing what comes of it. 

Warmly, 

Shefali

Dear Colleagues, 

Covid and Climate. With these two simultaneous crises the world is currently bound together on the journey towards a paradigm shift that require all countries and territories to recognize our mutual interdependence. These are two risks that do not only demand immediate urgent responses as their impact continues to reverse hard-won development gains; they are also a constant reminder of a collective inability to take risk-informed decisions.

The recognition, at massive scale, that any single-risk hazard analysis is obsolete, and that threats are interconnected, able to cross national borders at a paralyzing speed, often occur simultaneously, and can make even the hardest-won development gains fragile, provides us – UNDP as well as our partners – with a special window in history.

This window opens the opportunity of promoting an unprecedented level of discipline in weaving risk analysis into both humanitarian support, development and peacebuilding. The RID lens has previously – as colleagues have described – often been an add-on or seen as the responsibility of certain siloed departments/entities/units. Now, however, the idea of RID as an entry point to incrementally insulating progress is extraordinarily compelling to all sectors and stakeholder groups – from public to private, from urban to rural, from communities to cabinet meetings.

The point I would like to make against this backdrop and before this timely discussion closes is that while we sometimes, rightly, tend to focus on how reorganize and strengthen our own UNDP institutional set-up, capacities and partnerships, our core comparative edge is that we are already sitting on existing programmatic portfolios that offer a gold mine of entry points to building the RID capacities of national and local governance systems.

The combination of this UNDP vantage point and the current global sense of urgency gives us a special opportunity to align UNDP’s ‘bread-and-butter’ work on developing responsive public institutions - often not conceived of with a systematic RID lens - with the urgency of building RID capacities of local level governance systems. With that, we have an opportunity to advance the idea that if the work of public institutions is not risk-informed, then it is not genuinely responsive to the needs of the people.

Flowing from this point, some specific entry points could be the consistent integration of explicit RID components in initiatives that support for example the center of government (President’s Offices, PMOs etc); the capacities of local authorities and multi-level governance systems; the development of civil service capacities; and – often overlooked – the development of government capacities for effective risk-informed aid management, especially in fragile settings.

By instrumentalising this multitude of programming on people-centred institutional development that UNDP leads across all regions and all development settings, we have unique vehicles for not only embedding RID in durable structures led by local institutions, but also for promoting the role of public institutions as conveners for broad multi-stakeholder coalitions that are required to ultimately deliver RID at local level.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that with SDG localization efforts gaining ground in many settings, the stars are aligning for a systemic approach to delivering risk-informed development rooted in innovative collaborations between partners that share a common interest in insulating development gains.

Thanks Angelika and colleagues for initiating the discussion and leading this vital work. Happy to contribute and collaborate as you move this agenda forward.

Pelle

Dear Angelika and colleagues,

I have been following this discussion with great interest and would like to offer a couple questions or comments from the other side of the house - I am part of the BPPS/Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) team, and work on climate and water issues.
 

More dynamic integration of RiD across all teams at UNDP.  There needs to be a much stronger integration between BPPS and the Crisis Bureau and across all teams - as some colleagues noted above. For instance, water and climate cut across our bureaus and teams and cannot be adressed in isolation. 

On this note, it would be good to see how UNDP can further contribute to reducing risk on the country-level (as an unintended consequence). For example, while systems thinking and risk considerations are prevalent in the climate change adaptation community, this is not necessarily so in the climate change mitigation (emission reduction) community. At least not yet – but increasing awareness in the global finance community is already changing that. In the end, the lack of integrating risk considerations upfront may make it harder to get these projects financed. If it was implemented, it may either waste the investment or lead to risks for other areas. If you look at proposed NDC measures such as hydropower or transport projects, for instance, they may not necessarily consider long-term climate change impacts on the hydrological cycle.  Or, from a climate change mitigation perspective, urban density is much favored to reduce the carbon footprint. But from a resilience perspective, you may look at landuse, green spaces etc. How should countries weigh the various options, risks and trade-offs?

Furthermore, I think that much can be gained by also looking at how other teams can strategically contribute to reducing risks. For example, the water community noticed that various conflicts and trade-offs were not considered in the development of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Long-term Strategies (LTS). This is why UNDP and partners developed a checklist for policy makers to consider the interactions of various sectoral climate actions and water, In addition, a paper is in development which will dive deeper into potential risk hotspots for water resources from proposed climate change mitigation actions. We did not observe many similar assessments of risks and trade-offs for  other thematic areas. Internally, the SES seems to consider potential conflicts and trade-offs as Holly Mergler  mentioned. But actionable guidance for countries is also needed.This would be hugely relevant for UNDP’s green recovery offer as well.

Another entry point could be climate finance – in particular the work done on financial assessments of domestic budgets and investment flows. Some countries are now looking at the cost of inaction. The climate team is also working with the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action to mainstream climate change into macroeconomic policy, fiscal planning, budgeting, public investment management, and procurement practices (Helsinki Principle #4) – We also just ran a consultation with UNDP’s economic advisors on how to best integrate climate change in development planning and green recovery efforts. IFIs are moving to integrating climate and in financial decision-making as well (see IMF article f.ex. ). Another interesting partner you could check out is the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (CCRI) – “a public-private coalition of institutional investors, banks, insurers, rating agencies and governments, representing over US$10 trillion in assets, CCRI was launched at the UN Climate Action Summit to form a cohesive fiscal understanding of climate risk for use by investors.” – Chile is currently carrying out an interesting project looking at infrastructure risk with one of the insurance companies and an academic partner. If you are interested in any of these points, I’d be happy to refer you to my colleagues.

Internal capacity building on RiD

As some colleagues noted, knowledge about RiD resides within a small cluster of teams. But how do you mainstream it across the house? We had a similar problem with the Climate Promise where we needed to rapidly build capacity throughout UNDP but the experience resided largely just in the small NDC Support Programme. I can provide further info if needed.

Thank you for this interesting discussion. I look forward to seeing how the RiD offer shapes up!

Katharina

Dear Angelika and colleagues,

Thank you very much for a very rich and diverse discussion.

Some key lessons learned from our GCCF programme conducted in partnership with Gov4Res could provide some directions for future programming:

• Integrating climate change and risk informed development requires a whole-of-society approach and active participation in the decision-making process by governments, civil society, private sector, think-tanks, universities and citizens. Each part of the society can provide invaluable and innovative ideas on what are the risks to development based on their knowledge and experience, which can support planning and budgeting process and lead to a more effective utilization of resources. This, so called, accountability ecosystem, can lead to higher levels of trust between citizens and their government, leading to increased participation and more informed decision making.
• Regional platform for replication of innovation- our BRH Governance and Climate Change Finance programme has been working closely with Ministries of Finance, Planning and relevant sectoral Ministries to integrate climate change into planning and budgeting processes of the governments in Asia-Pacific region, in partnership with Gov4Res programme. Regional dialogues that the programme has been conducting for Asia-Pacific countries have proven to be an excellent incubator of new ideas and innovation that other countries can replicate, at a faster speed and a lower cost. South-south exchanges have proven to be an effective tool to transfer the knowledge between the countries.
• Analytical work and collaborative research for a more risk informed decisions- Collaborative research conducted with government support and local civil society organization/NGO/think-tank can provide an effective approach in ensuring that recommendations on risk informed development are feeding into planning and budgeting process. The collaboration between government and civil society can increase ownership, trust and dialogue and lead to more effective planning and budgeting of resources (as civil society organizations traditionally have more in-depth knowledge about risks associated with local communities and solutions how to mitigate it).
• Risk informed development with a focus on women, poor and vulnerable groups. As women, poor and vulnerable groups suffer the most from adverse effects of disasters and climate change, it is important that UNDP focuses on groups that are most prone to shocks and ensure targeted policies and programming.

Thanks again for a great discussion and please let me know if you are interested to learn more on any of the points stated above.