Seeds for a safer tommorow toolkit

2017

SEEDS FOR A SAFER TOMORROW TOOLKIT FOR PROMOTING CROSS-GENERATIONAL DIALOGUES AND ACTIONS TOWARDS SENDAI FRAMEWORK IMPLEMENTATION

Table of Contents Acknowledgements From Sendai to the world: what is your role?

Core concepts for our action!

Planning a DRR activity DRR in practice: implementing and starting an activity Challenges ahead References:

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Acknowledgements This 2017 Toolkit could not have been compiled without the support and work of various individuals.

THANKS GO TO: Victor Marchezini, CEMADEN Leah Pope, Water Youth Network Crystal Ma, UN Major Group of Children and Youth Ramiz, Khan, ICLEI Robert Šakić Trogrlić, Water Youth Network Donovan Gutierres, MIT Global Poverty Initiative Peter Abraham Fukuda Loewi, UN Major Group of Children and Youth Nhilce Nahomi Esquivel Gómez, Water Youth Network Moa Herrgard and Alexandrina Mavrodieva, Global Focal Points, UN MGCY DRR Working Groups Imra Hoszic and Sharon Lo, Co-chairs of the UN MGCY GPDRR Organising Committee UN MGCY Organising Committee for the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

Your assistance and support is highly appreciated.

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From Sendai to the world: what is your role?

Hello, and thank you for being interested in DRR! Disaster risk reduction is of major concern to the public and a human rights issue that cannot be ignored. The Global Assessment Report states that 42 million life years were lost in internationally reported disasters annually between 1980 and 2012. Are these disasters natural? Over 80% of the life years lost in disasters are spread across low and middle-income countries, representing a serious setback to social and economic development (UNISDR, 2015). At the end of the twentieth century, an estimated 66.5 million children were affected annually during disasters (Penrose and Takaki 2006).

Although young people are at risk for injury and death, we can engage in strategies to reduce this vulnerability. We can be engaged in disaster risk management, risk assessment, active problem-solving, promoting critical thinking, and increase our willingness to take on future challenges (UNICEF and UNESCO, 2014; UNISDR, 2015).

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR) is the first major agreement of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The main goal of this framework is to prevent and reduce disaster risk through the implementation of integrated and inclusive economic, structural, legal, social, health, cultural, educational, environmental, technological, political and institutional measures that prevent and reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to disaster, increase preparedness for response and recovery, and strengthen resilience. The Sendai Framework has seven targets (Figure 1) and four priorities for action (Figure 2).

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Figure 1 - Global targets of SFDRR

Figure 2 - Priorities for action

The Sendai Framework is a 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognizes that the State has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that the responsibility should be shared with local governments, the private sector and other stakeholders—such as young people.

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This guide aims to: 1.

Raise awareness about the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and its importance; 2. Empower children and youth with knowledge and skills to meaningfully contribute to the implementation of the Sendai Framework; 3. Prepare children and youth for the GPDRR and future applications of the Sendai Framework; 4. Provide a networking space for children and youth active in DRR to meet and build potential partnerships beyond the conference.

Core concepts for our action!

The UNISDR 2017 terminology on DRR and Sendai Framework offer a common understanding and usage of concepts. To achieve a common understanding, it is essential to promote dialogues, because they are an indispensable component of the process of both learning and knowing. Concepts are important to promote dialogues in order to produce knowledge and to assist the DRR efforts. Have you lived some experience related to the concepts below? Do you agree with these definitions?

DISASTER RISK: the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets which could occur to a system, society or a community in a specific period of time, determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity (Figure 3).

HAZARD:

a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation. Hazards can include latent conditions that may represent future threats and can have different origins (Figure 3): natural (geological, hydrometeorological and biological) or induced by human processes (environmental degradation and technological hazards).

EXPOSURE:

the situation of people, infrastructure, housing, production capacities and

other tangible human assets located in hazard-prone areas.

CAPACITY: the combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources available within an organization, community or society to manage and reduce disaster risks and strengthen 5

resilience. Capacity may include infrastructure, institutions, human knowledge and skills, and collective attributes such as social relationships, leadership and management.

VULNERABILITY:

the conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards. The root causes of vulnerability involve social and economic structures, such as the characteristics of power, wealth and resources distribution, as well as ideologies and historical heritage (i.e. war and post-war fragility, militarism). Vulnerability can also be redistributed by dynamic pressures such as business cycles, population change, governance, land use, and housing market boom (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Progression of Vulnerability (Adapted from Wisner et al., 2012: 23).

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT: the process by which people, organizations and society systematically stimulate and develop their capacities over time to achieve social and economic goals. It is a concept that extends the term of capacity-building to encompass all aspects of creating and sustaining capacity growth over time. It involves learning and various types of training, but also continuous efforts to develop institutions, political awareness, financial resources.

DISASTER RISK DRIVERS: processes

or conditions, often development-related, that influence the level of disaster risk creation by increasing levels of exposure and vulnerability or reducing capacity. Underlying disaster risk drivers include poverty and inequality,

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maldevelopment projects, climate change and variability, unplanned and rapid urbanization etc.

DISASTER RISK GOVERNANCE: the system of institutions, mechanisms, policy and legal frameworks and other arrangements to guide, coordinate and oversee DRR and related areas of policy. Good governance needs to be transparent, inclusive, collective and efficient to reduce existing disaster risks and avoid creating new ones.

DISASTER:

a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any

scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts. Disaster management has some phases (Figure 4)

Figure 4: disaster management

Cycle of

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS:

is based on a sound analysis of disaster risks and good linkages with early warning systems, and includes such activities as contingency planning, the stockpiling of equipment and supplies, the development of arrangements for coordination, evacuation and public information, and associated training and field exercises.

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RESILIENCE: the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.

To ensure the meaningful participation of youth in the DRR policy design, implementation, monitoring and review of the Sendai Framework, as well as to provide for continuous knowledge sharing and preparedness of youth at the local, regional and global levels, the UNMGCY aimed at outlining a proposal for the conduct of practical physical workshops that will raise awareness and equip youth at the local and regional levels with relevant knowledge and tools to engage with the problematics of the DRR field and the Sendai Framework.

Planning a DRR activity Understanding disaster risk is essential to formulate, plan and implement actions towards DRR. We can build these capacities doing a collective study of reality, finding routes to solve problems and making policy recommendations (FREIRE, 2005). Key understandings, skills, and values to guide your DRR activities have been highlighted.

Figure 5- Dimensions of knowledge

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To initiate DRR activity, it is important to understand the knowledge of yourself and others as well as the personal roles and responsibilities in times of hazard and disaster and the personal needs, concerns, hopes, and fears. Important basic safety measures include precautionary and protective measures to be taken before, during, and after hazards (UNICEF, 2012). The knowledge about hazards, disasters, and vulnerability can also involve traditional knowledge about past local disasters that can be discovered through activities of oral history with elder people or affected people that live to tell.

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) mechanisms and practices (Figure 5) are vast and it is essential to understand them in order to improve our disaster risk governance. DRM relates to roles and responsibilities of local, regional and national government. The role of DRR policies and strategies is to prevent new disaster risk (prospective focus), reduce existing disaster risk (corrective focus) and manage residual risk (compensatory focus). DRM includes community-based approaches which should ensure people involvement in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of local action for disaster risk reduction (UNISDR, 2017).

Skills are also important to planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of local DRR actions. In DRR, it is important to assess the level of danger, to decode and learn from spoken, written and visual media information. Critical thinking is necessary and you are specially invited to do these in DRR field. If you are planning to attend the Global Platform in Mexico, we will work on dialogue and develop the ability to listen carefully, engage in discussion with peers from different socio-cultural backgrounds, as well as work collaboratively and cooperatively.

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DRR in practice: implementing and starting an activity

There are practical questions that you can use to plan a youth action (Figure 6) and steps to make a capacity building meeting:

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STEPS TO MAKE A CAPACITY BUILDING MEETING 1. Identify needs and build on existing capacities.

2. Being clear about the objectives: a. “What capacities should be built, for whom, on what topics, and to what end?� b. Three different dimensions: building awareness, building analytical capacity and building decision-making capacity. c. Different targets: human capacities and institutional capacities.

3. Identify approach a. Examples: training, formal education, capacity building projects, networking.

4. Target the right people to build a critical mass 10

a. stakeholders from different groups of society should interact Source: Information from UNEP, 2006

We collected some experiences about practical physical workshops around the world. They are important to equip youth at the local and regional levels with relevant knowledge and tools to engage with the problematics of the DRR.

“WORKSHOP OF THE FUTURE”,

experience from Brazil, High School Monsenhor

Ignacio Gioia, São Luiz do Paraitinga town Trust is a crucial element for disaster prevention at several levels. It is widely agreed that distrust between local communities and government or scientists lies in the absence of space for dialogue. The participatory methodology “Workshop of the Future” was organized with students, teachers, and civil defense agents. Twenty participants were divided into four groups. Each group envisioned a collective dream (wish tree) for a disasters safe community, identified the main barriers (rocks on the way) for making their dream real, and planned (bridge of actions) ways to overcome barriers (Figure 7). The results of each group were shared with everybody. All four groups stated their distrust of authorities and identified corruption as the main obstacle for reaching their objectives. Youth replicated the same workshop with their community.

Figure 7 - Workshop

of the future (Marchezini and Trajber, 2016)

To s e e m o r e i n fo r m a t i o n : v=doyxRExxZTk&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

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Partners: High School Monsenhor Ignacio Gioia, Civil Defense of São Luiz do Paraitinga town, Sao Paulo State University (UNESP) and National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN)

“PARTICIPATORY VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT” (PVA) AND “VULNERABILITY AND CAPACITY ASSESSMENT” (VCA) experiences around the world.

PVA and VCA are systematic processes that involve communities and other stakeholders in an in-depth examination of their vulnerability, its root causes and most vulnerable groups, and agree on actions by, with and to people to reduce their vulnerability. PVA and VCA generally use a step-by-step approach to analyse the causes of vulnerability by: 1. Tracking hazards to determine the level of exposure to risk, causes and effects.

2. Examining unsafe conditions (factors that make people susceptible to risk at a specific point in time).

3. Tracking systems and factors (dynamic pressures) that determine vulnerability, resilience and root causes.

4. Analysing capacities and their impact on reducing vulnerability

Figure 7 -

Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (Source: IFRC, 2017)

To see more information: Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRRGKhXaifA G u i d e : h t t p s : / / w w w . a c t i o n a i d . o r g . u k / s i t e s / d e f a u l t / fi l e s / d o c _ l i b / 108_1_participatory_vulnerability_analysis_guide.pdf

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“YOUNG DIGITAL MAPPERS”, experience from Brazil, Unicef, MIT Mobile Experience Lab, Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science and Brazilian NGO Cedaps Adolescents were trained to use mobile phones loaded with UNICEF-GIS to photograph social and environmental risks that are automatically tagged with global positioning system (GPS). The adolescents use cameras attached to kites to gather aerial images, helping to identify the presence or absence of drainage systems, the availability of sanitation facilities, impediments to evacuation, and other issues.

To see the Voices of Youth maps: http://rio.unicef-gis.org/ To see a video about this experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc9SIeixqVo

“YOUNG DIGITAL MAPPERS”, experience from Madagascar The initiative uses smartphone technology to create an interactive digital map, which enables young people to document issues in the community that they see as important, such as environmental conservation or gender equality. Using a mobile application, photographs can be uploaded onto the map, which becomes the medium for young people to express themselves by sharing their stories and photographs and advocating for change.

More information: https://www.unicef.org/esaro/5440_mdg2015_young-people.html

“YOUTH CREATING LOW COST TECHNOLOGIES TO ADAPT TO RAISING TEMP”, experience from Can Tho University, Vietnam Young people are developing innovations to adapt to raising temp in Mekong Delta.

Through a community need assessment, people acknowledged about extreme weather events in the area, especially increasing heat in the summer. To face this challenge, youth developed a project that aims to create a system with multiple functions: containing and filtering raining water to make it useable as well as atomizing it to cool the rooftop of households.

To see more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKJFGR5elWM

“YOUNG AS RISK COMMUNICATORS”,

experience from Chile,

José Emilio Páez

Morales Young people are important agents of risk communication using several types of media.

There are several experiences around the world. UNISDR promoted the first "Youth Video Challenge for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)" carried out within the framework of the Regional Platform For Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas (PR17), occurred in Montreal, Canada, from 7 to 9 March 2017. The Video-Challenge sought for change agents and offered 13

the youth an opportunity to be part of the conversation in DRR and resilience building at a regional level. José Morales, from Chile, was the winner. But he continues to produce videos about DRR! You can see and share the videos! Or do you want to produce?

To see material of Youth Video Challenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch? list=PL5OyxVUQm0_ikrJmovbtn_4T6ab3ssV_-&v=OSw4N7Q9BII

“SHORELINE PROJECT”, experience from United States of America Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction is one of the priorities of Sendai Framework.

SHOREline project is a youth empowerment program that seeks to provide an opportunity to make fundamental changes in the lives of youth, their families, their communities, and beyond. Informed by stories and data collected from the Gulf Coast Population Impact Project, the SHOREline Project was created with the support of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to give youth a voice—and a platform—for encouraging their own recovery and the recovery of those around them.

To see more information: http://ncdp.columbia.edu/microsite-page/shoreline/shorelinehome/

“YOUNG SCIENTISTS PLATFORM”(YSP), experiences around the world Youth can also develop strategies to understand risk. Have you ever thought about being a young scientist? The Young Scientists Platform on DRR has been set up to provide a space for young experts from different scientific fields and regions to connect with their colleagues, to widen their knowledge, and to share their expertise. The platform aims to promote capacity building, through mentoring programmes, as well as providing opportunities for young experts to showcase their research and valuable contributions to reducing risk. YSP has prepared a special issue about policy briefs for DRR!

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Challenges ahead Disaster risks are generated inside development (UNISDR, 2015), but this message needs to spread. Capacity building, knowledge and skills can help to do this and are essential to finding routes for resiliency and vulnerability reduction. We can start a new perspective of disaster risk reduction in our communities, universities, governments, companies etc. We can spread the seeds of wonder so that new visions and solutions will arise to contest challenges related to environmental and climate change agenda. Additionally, these seeds can also impact people in their own communities by alleviating some situations of extreme poverty, oppression and other unsafe conditions and symptoms of fragile livelihoods.

Together, young people can influence the DRR agenda by providing a critical analysis to related problems. Young researchers are essential to this, and can change the way science is evolving using these citizen science guidelines. Young people can influence political agendas using advocacy skills to promote a deeper understanding of disaster. Words matter and we can use them to fight for a sustainable future!

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References: Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York; London: Continuum.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. (2017). Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA).

Marchezini, V.; Trajber, R. (2016). Youth based learning in disaster risk reduction education: barriers and bridges to promote resilience. In: Michele Companion, Miriam S. Chaiken.

(Org.). Responses to Disasters and Climate Change: Understanding Vulnerability and Fostering Resilience. Boca Raton, Flórida: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, p.

27-36.

Penrose, A. and M. Takaki (2006). Children’s rights in emergencies and disasters. The Lancet 367: 698–699.

Selby, D. and F. Kagawa (2012). Disaster risk reduction in school curricula: Case studies from thirty countries.Paris, France: UNESCO and UNICEF.

United Nations Children’s Fund. (2012). UNICEF and disaster risk reduction.

United Nations Environment Programme. (2006). Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of Capacity Building for Sustainable Development. Geneva: UNEP.

United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2015). Global Assessment of Disaster Risk Reduction 2015. Geneva: UNISDR.

UNISDR (2015). Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. Geneva: UNISDR.

UNISDR (2017). Terminology. Geneva: UNISDR.

Wisner, B., Gaillard, JC, and Kelman, I. (2012). “Framing disaster: Theories and stories seeking to understand hazards, vulnerability and risk”. In B. Wisner, JC Gaillard, & I. Kelman (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of hazards and disaster risk reduction. London: Routledge, pp.18-34.

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