Executive summary

Countries are faced with the growing challenge of managing increasing risks from climate change and climate variability, putting development and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals at risk. The adoption in 2015 of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Paris Agreement on climate change provides a clear mandate for increased coherence in countries’ approaches to climate and disaster risk reduction. While both frameworks refer to their respective goals and objectives, each guides progress towards a more sustainable, resilient and equitable future. Domestically, responsibilities for climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) tend to be spread across different institutions and stakeholders; internationally, they are supported by separate UN agencies and related processes. The different approaches and mechanisms inevitably result in overlaps and gaps.

Countries are increasingly recognising the benefits of increased coherence in CCA and DRR, exemplified by the number of countries that either have developed joint strategies or put in place processes that facilitate co-ordination across the two policy areas. For increased coherence, certain enabling factors must be in place, including strong leadership and engagement of key government bodies, broad stakeholder participation and co-ordination, clear allocation of roles, responsibilities and resources, and monitoring, evaluation and continuous learning. This can help identify trade-offs (e.g. growing need for public support to post-disaster responses in the absence of a focus on CCA) and synergies (e.g. a more comprehensive assessment of interlinked climate and disaster risks), while minimising redundancies in delivery.

Informed by the country experiences of Ghana, Peru and the Philippines, this report examines the potential for increased coherence in the approach used for CCA and DRR, structured around five entry points:

• Policy and governance: Realising the benefits of increased coherence in CCA and DRR requires political support and leadership by a recognised co-ordination entity. Awareness raising and capacity development can ensure that the benefits and trade-offs of greater coherence are understood by key stakeholders and guide the identification of shared solutions. Ministries and agencies with a presence at the local level are well placed to lead efforts to increase coherence in CCA and DRR, subject to the availability of human, institutional and financial capacities.

• Data and information: Despite a shift over the past decade from assessing climate and disaster hazards to better understanding the risks there continues to be a gap in related sources of data and information. This gap is furthered by limitations in human and technical capacity to access, generate and use the data and information available. Centralised platforms can support efforts to tailor data and information to user needs. This should be matched by efforts to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to use the data to translate climate information into a format that can guide decision-making processes.

• Implementation: Translating political commitment to increased coherence in CCA and DRR into coherence in implementation requires clear allocation of roles and responsibilities between institutional bodies with a mandate to co-ordinate and those with a mandate to implement and fund. Capacity constraints – human and financial – can exacerbate barriers to implementation, particularly at the local level where most implementation occurs. Lack of coherence and co-ordination at higher levels of government can also lead to conflicting or duplicative demands at the local level. Stricter enforcement of common policy instruments, such as land-use management and building codes, can also contribute to joint CCA and DRR outcomes.

• Financing: Existing budgeting tools and guidelines can help identify funding gaps and priorities for public investments. Risk assessments and economic analysis can support prioritising measures known to foster greater coherence in CCA and DRR. Further, piloting of different financial instruments, in some cases with support from development partners, can also help governments develop solid risk financing strategies to respond to the impacts of climate-related disasters. For such pilots to succeed, however, they must include clear exit, replication or scale-up plans to allow relevant stakeholders to build on examples of good practice.

• Monitoring, evaluation and learning: National reporting systems provide an important basis for the monitoring and evaluation of CCA and DRR. The level of detail that can be captured by separate or joint reporting systems for CCA and DRR vary. In all cases, a persistent challenge is to ensure that the information generated informs subsequent policy-making processes. While not unique to the context of CCA and DRR, the uncertain nature of projected climate change impacts and the need for a flexible approach, however, highlights the importance of continuous learning.

Development co-operation can supports partner countries in addressing climate and disaster risks while at the same time strengthening coherence in implementation of CCA and DRR. This includes support to initiatives, including pilots, that strengthen countries’ policy frameworks and institutional arrangements and that can facilitate the identification of opportunities for coherence in CCA and DRM. At the same time, development co-operation can create barriers to coherence in CCA and DRR when the intersection between the two is not explicitly or sufficiently taken into account in the support provided, or when there is inadequate co-ordination between entities or providers of support for either CCA or DRR.