Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Programme

Last updated: 16 August 2018

Vision

Long-term Objective

The long-term objective of the WMO DRR Programme is to contribute to the strengthening of institutional capacities with respect to the provision of meteorological, hydrological and climate services and cooperation in supporting DRR for the protection of lives and property and contributing to sustainable development of Members.

Purpose and Scope

The purpose of the WMO DRR Programme is to assist WMO Members to provide and deliver services that are directed towards the protection of lives, livelihoods and property, in a cost-effective, systematic and sustainable manner.

As countries are strengthening their institutional capacities in DRR, there is increasing need for core and customized meteorological, hydrological and climate services by a diverse group of DRR stakeholders (e.g. government authorities, public and private sectors, Non-Governmental Organizations, general public and media). 

Meteorological, hydrological and climate services are fundamental in supporting a number of decision areas such as early warning, emergency response operations, sectoral preparedness planning, inventory management, insurance contracts, strategy and scenario building, infrastructure investments and land zoning, government risk financing, and international policy negotiation (see Figure 2 under "DRR Home").

Through its crosscutting DRR Programme, WMO is working to align the activities of its constituent bodies, technical programmes and global operational network and its strategic partners to strengthen NMHSs to (Figure 1 below):

1. Engage effectively in the National DRR governance and institutional frameworks;
2. Identify, prioritize, establish partnerships and service delivery agreements with national DRR user community engaged in various DRR activities such as risk analysis, multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS), sectoral risk management, disaster risk financing and transfer;
3. Develop and deliver core and specialized products and services (e.g., data, forecasts, analysis, technical advices and a range of other value-added products and services) defined by the requirements of the “DRR users” for DRR decision support (e.g., hazard/risk analysis, MHEWS, sectoral risk management and disaster risk financing and risk transfer) in a cost-effective, systematic and sustainable manner;
4. Ensure that core operational capacities (e.g., observing networks, forecasting systems, telecommunication systems, data management systems, human resources, etc.) are built upon the principles of Quality Management Systems (QMS) to support product and service development and delivery;
5. Establish partnership agreements with other national technical agencies (e.g., hydrological services, ocean services) and with global and regional specialized centres (e.g. Global Producing Centres (GPC), Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs), Regional Climate Centres (RCC), Tsunami Watch Centres, etc.), with standard operating procedures; and,
6. Engage in regional and global efforts for development of risk information for large scale and trans-boundary hazards- through strengthened regional and global cooperation.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of linkages between NMHSs and DRR stakeholders.

Benchmarking National Meteorological, Hydrological and Climate Capacities to Support DRR Decision-making

In 2006, WMO conducted a national survey to benchmark existing capacities, gaps and needs of its Members for development of meteorological, hydrological and climate-related information to support DRR. The national survey addressed capacities of NMHSs to contribute to all aspects of disaster risk reduction including risk identification, sectoral planning, EWS, education and knowledge sharing. Of the 187 Members of WMO at the time, 139 (74 %) countries participated in this survey.

The overall results of the assessments show that more than 60% of NMHSs indicated the need for appropriate observing networks, human and financial resources to maintain them, data rescue programmes and data management systems. Nearly 70% of NMHSs require guidelines for maintaining standard databases of hazards, metadata and tools for hazard analysis, Furthermore, there is need for development of disaster impact databases for various sectors as well as hazard and risk analysis tools for quantification of exposure and vulnerabilities (e.g. casualties, construction damages, crop yield reduction, and water shortages). The results of the survey have been synthesized into a report Capacity Assessment of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in Support of Disaster Risk Reduction.

WMO DRR Roadmap

The WMO DRR Roadmap is that aligns the WMO DRR Programme with the DRR aspects of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, above all the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030. See the dedicated WMO DRR Roadmap page here.

WMO DRR Work Plans

Based on the assessment of the capacities, gaps and needs, the DRR Services of WMO aim to facilitate better alignment of the activities of WMO constituent bodies, technical programmes and global operational network as well as its strategic partners to support capacity development of NMHSs. This is achieved through a two-tier implementation approach (Figure 2):

1. Development of thematic guidelines, standards and training modules based on the documentation and synthesis of good practices; and,
2. Coordinated national and regional capacity development projects addressing DRR and climate change adaptation.

Figure 2: Two-tier schematic of the implementation approach of the WMO DRR Programme

Starting points for the activities and deliverables are:

• Resolutions, decisions and requests by Cg-17 in 2015 and EC-70 in 2018 as well as decisions and requests by previous Congresses and Executive Councils which are still valid;
• Recommendations by the the EC WG/DRR and its sub-groups;
• The overall framework (Figure 1) and implementation approach (Figure 2) by the DRR Programme as provided and further detailed in the DRR Roadmap; and,
• Key WMO internal as well as external meetings which require adequate inputs and yield relevant outputs.

The DRR Work Plans are the near term elements of the WMO DRR Roadmap Implementation Plan.