Greetings, RADIX readers and writers and Nat Haz list friends,
Here I am in cold, wet Geneva, where spring is a whispered hope and the wisteria hang like icy light-blue funereal garlands.
Or maybe I see the city this way because of the depressive nature of the meeting I am attending.
The UN agency responsible for disaster reduction and the guidelines for getting there since 2005 (UNISDR) seems to have put in place a very inclusive consultative process for designing the post 2015 follow on approach and international framework.
Civil society is here in greater numbers than ever before and with greater unity of purpose. They want a post-2015 agenda for action that has ...
1. A focus on the poorest and most marginalised
2. A focus on communities and local government cooperating to reduce risks by using resources decentralised from the national state.
3. A focus on the deep, primary, root causes of disaster vulnerability that stem from unequal and unjust concentration of power: corruption, discrimination and exclusion, displacement and land grabs, lack of access to resources.
4. An approach that breaks down institutional silos and provides disaster reduction integrated with livelihood enhancement, health, education, conflict resolution and environmental conservation.
5. A new regime that will have enforceable targets and much more accountability on the part of governments.
Yet despite all the talk of 'consultation' the chair's report will be drafted ONLY by the UNISDR big shots themselves and the Swiss government. In 2011 the chair's report was drafted by a committee that included civil society. Is the UNISDR modelling transparency?
Even worse, the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) that has tabled the third of the bottom up surveys on the state of progress toward disaster reduction
( http://www.globalnetwork-dr.org/views-from-the-frontline/vfl-2013.html ) has been forbidden by the UNISDR to screen a 3 minute video tomorrow at the start of the GNDR presentation because it shows 'negative results'; yet the numbers don't lie. 21,000 informants in 57 low and medium income countries told researchers from 450 organisations in the GNDR that LOSSES HAVE INCREASED. Nevertheless the UNISDR has banned this video.
As one colleague from Africa said to me, banning the video gives encouragement to many dictatorial governments around the world.
What on earth is the UNISDR playing at?
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