National Workshop on Sendai Framework Monitor and Disaster Loss Accounting System for YEMEN

Under the patronage of the Minister of Water and Environment in Yemen, the UNDRR Regional Office for the Arab States and in coordination with the Ministry of Water and Environment organized a National workshop on Sendai Framework Monitor and Disaster Loss Accounting System from 30 January to 2 February 2022 in Aden. 

These efforts are critical to advance Yemen work towards the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030 that marks a crucial shift from managing disasters to managing risk and establishes resilience-building as a common denominator of the 2030 Agenda assuring that accountability is one of the cornerstones of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

According to the Arab Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction 2020, over the last twenty-five years, the region faced 276 disaster events, killing nearly 100,00 affecting 10 million and rendering nearly 1.5 million homeless, without even accounting for economic losses and conflict-related fatalities, injured, displaced, and other affected population segments. Reported disasters are continuing to increase due to both improved reporting and increased exposure and vulnerabilities. However, it should be recognized that there are major gaps in data loss collation at the national level, where data is collated for compensation purposes rather than for informing the science-policy interface.

The Minister of Water and Environment, HE Eng. Tawfiq Al-Sharjabi stressed the importance of the workshop and the UNDRR efforts to advance the capacity of the government of Yemen. He also called on donor countries and organizations to support Yemen which has been greatly affected by climate change, especially hurricanes, floods, and heavy rains that struck Yemen during the last period and caused many natural disasters.

The workshop was attended by more than 45 ministries' undersecretaries, academics and managers to advocate the importance of disaster risk reduction governance and put in place sound institutional arrangements to support DRR efforts and Sendai Framework Monitor reporting at the country level as well as the achievement of Target E,  deepen knowledge of the importance of monitoring the implementation of Sendai Framework and develop the national capacities in using the Sendai Framework Monitor to report on progress made against the 38 indicators of Sendai Framework, improve understanding of the need for disaggregated data on disaster losses to enhance meaningful analysis that inform decision making on programmes and resources to reduce risk and train the participants on Disaster Loss and Damage Database through introducing “DesInventar-Sendai” system software and its methodology as well as national systems for the systematic collection, documentation and analysis of data about losses caused by disasters and enhance the knowledge of the new Disaster Loss Accounting System (DesInventar-Sendai) and its importance in establishing the baseline for post-2015 monitoring of Sendai Framework implementation.