Blogs

Water utilities must act now to ensure water security for millions of Indonesians. To do so, we’ll need to enhance resilience through risk-based planning and engineering design, and be better prepared to respond rapidly in an emergency. 

The government and the World Bank, with funding from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), conducted a study to develop strategies for large-scale coral reef restoration. This assessment prioritized 15 locations on the three main islands where coral restoration could reduce coastal risks and enhance biodiversity. According to the study, in most locations, coral restoration would need to be combined with artificial structures to deliver significant coastal protection. 

Panama City has tripled in size during the last 25 years as a result of rapid and unplanned urbanization. Its geographic location, combined with a lack of adequate land use planning, deficient drainage systems, and weak local governance, all make it a city highly exposed and vulnerable to the impact of floods and rising sea levels. This scenario implies a major challenge for the socio-economic development and resilience of this city of two million inhabitants.  

In a year already like none other, the 2020 hurricane season broke records with 30 named storms, surpassing the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which to date was the most active on record. The last two powerful tropical storms, Eta and Iota, also broke records.  

For the first time in history, two hurricanes of category 4 or above made landfall in Nicaragua and Honduras within two weeks. These events caused further devastation in those countries already struggling to respond to the COVID-19  (coronavirus) crisis. That’s why mainstreaming disaster risk management (DRM) into development planning is essential to reversing the current trend of rising disaster impact.  

A rainy commute is unpleasant for most. But in many cities across Africa, a rainy season brings more than mere inconvenience. Especially where drainage and sewage systems are inadequate, rainfall can quickly result in flooded streets. Pedestrians are forced to take off shoes to trudge through murky waters.

In 2018, Ngaoundéré was selected as one of 12 cities to participate in Open Cities Africa, an initiative of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) that supports the collection of open-source risk information through citizen engagement and the development of data products to support local decision-making.

For the past five years, the Africa Hydromet Program has worked to unite communities, countries, and the entire continent to tackle looming disaster risks. In its first phase, the initiative has dedicated $312 million to overcome these challenges, so much so that across Africa, 26 million people are benefitting from improved hydro-meteorological—hydromet—services with investments from the Africa Hydromet Program. 

As part of its portfolio of urban resilience diagnostic tools, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery’s (GFDRR) Building Regulation for Resilience Program has drawn from expert institutions and researchers to design a fire risk assessment tool for the built environment.

Ibadan is the third most populous city in Nigeria—Africa’s largest country in terms of population and economy. This city of six million also happens to be the country’s largest in terms of geographic area, but like many other cities, urbanization is largely uncontrolled, and people are exposed to disasters like floods.

Over the last three years, our team has been working hand in hand with the government of Sierra Leone to enhance urban mobility in the capital city of Freetown, and to protect the local transport system against growing climate risk. This past year have been especially hard, with remote working, multiple virtual missions, and dramatic economic slow-down in Sierra Leone.