Launch of the UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction Special Edition 2023 (GAR 2023): Mapping Resilience for the Sustainable Development Goals

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Access the GAR SPECIAL REPORT 2023 

Time

Time: 13.15 – 14.30 ESΤ

Summary

Global warming will surpass 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels during the next decade, due to greenhouse gas emissions. The constant rise in temperatures and related impacts combine with other pressures, thus increasing risk and undermining resilience. The increasing interconnectedness of people and human systems increases the risk of compound and cascading crises. 

The UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction Special Report 2023: Mapping resilience for the Sustainable Development Goals (GAR SR 2023) explores what risk-informed sustainable development looks like in an increasingly complex and risky world. It highlights how risks are interconnected and how pitfalls can be transformed into opportunities to build resilience. It aims to support government policymakers charged with the difficult and innovative work of risk-informing development to face the increasingly complex set of threats resulting from the deepening climate crisis and other threats. It also aims to highlight how resilience-building must be central to the framing of a more risk-informed post-2030 agenda.

The maps in this report highlight how factors such as the rapid deterioration of biodiversity, the degradation of land and stress on water resources, lower the capacity of human systems to withstand hazards that are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity. Currently, only 50 per cent of countries have operational early-warning systems and even fewer have legislation in place to connect these systems to preparedness and response plans that can ensure prevention and anticipatory action, as well as response. Humanitarian needs are also rising, as disasters and conflict continue to create enormous human suffering.

At the same time, the report’s action case examples show that this is not inevitable, and how action is possible on every continent to stop the worsening spiral of risk and disasters and to accelerate SDG target achievement.

The High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2023 will be held in New York from 10-19 July 2023, under the theme "Accelerating the recovery from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at all levels”. The launch of the GAR SR 2023 will take place on the margins of the HLPF to highlight the importance of disaster resilience as a tool to accelerate full implementation of the SDGs and recover from disaster impacts, in particular related to the focus of the HLPF in 2023, on Goals 6 on clean water and sanitation, 7 on affordable and clean energy, and 11 on sustainable cities and communities.

Panel

Chair

• Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Moderator

• Mr. Ronald Jackson, Head of the Disaster Risk Reduction, Recovery for Building Resilience Team, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Panelists

• Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General
• Ms. Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN‐Habitat)
• Ms. Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
• Mr. Leonardo Souza, Chief, Energy Statistic Section, United Nations Statistics Division (UN-DESA)
• Ms. Kerry Hinds, Director, Department of Emergency Management Barbados
• Ms. Jenty Kirsch-Wood, GAR Coordinating Lead Author