Services

The Global Risk Identification Programme has assisted about 40 countries in understanding their risks. It supports the countries to establish National Disaster Observatories (NDO) and National Risk Information Systems (NRIS) to integrate all existing disaster and risk related information and make it available to all potential users. Risk assessments are implemented at national and local levels to assist the countries in the preparation of National Strategies for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Action Plans for the management of Urban and Sectoral risks. Risk considerations are integrated into development planning and investments. By supporting national institutions and engaging all sectors of society in these processes, UNDP develops local capacities and creates an enabling environment for implementing these strategies. The new knowledge of risks is often incorporated into school books and curricula to promote a culture of prevention.

The services and support are provided through a comprehensive risk assessment package to be implemented by local institutions, including:

Support countries to develop National Disaster Observatories (NDO)

This service is designed to provide technical guidance and training with the following specific objectives:

To produce a comprehensive National Disaster Profile (NDP);
To establish a National Disaster Observatory (NDO);
To develop the capacity for disaster analysis at both national and local levels;
To strengthen the national DRR system as a whole.

This service is delivered jointly by the coordination team, GRIP’s Regional Technical Support Centres and the UNDP regional and country offices.

Support countries to conduct National Risk Assessment (NRA)

This service is designed to provide national authorities with practical guidance technical support, and training in the following aspects:

Implementation of National Risk Assessment;
Formulation or revision of national disaster risk reduction strategy based on risk assessment;
Development of the national capacity for risk identification and assessment.

The services will be jointly delivered by GRIP coordination team, GRIP’s Regional Technical Support Centres, and UNDP country offices, within GRIP’s National Risk Assessment Framework (NRAF).

Support countries to conduct Local Risk Assessment (LRA)

This service is designed to provide municipal authorities with practical guidance technical support, and training in the following aspects:

Implementation of Urban Risk Assessment;
Formulation or revision of urban disaster risk reduction strategy and contingency plan based on risk assessment;
Development of the local capacity for risk identification and assessment.

Services to the International DRR Community

WHERE WE WORK

As of October 2010, GRIP has provided technical support and services to 40 out of the 45 UNDP client countries that have risk identification and assessment component in their country DRM/R programmes, accounting for around 90% of GRIP’s total country project portfolio. Project status, technical support and services provided, and associated inputs are summarized in Figure 1. As shown in the figure, GRIP’s support and services have covered almost all support types listed, except for the last stage of the project cycle – project closing.

Better risk information for sound decision making:

Laos has completed its National Risk Assessment and developed a comprehensive National Hazard Risk Profile for formulating its national Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Strategy. Laos’ is the 1st National Risk Profile of this kind in a high-risk developing country.
Armenia, Mozambique, Lebanon, Nepal, and Tajikistan have completed their comprehensive Country Situation Analysis (CSA) for risk assessment and are implementing National Risk Assessments for the development of their National Disaster Risk management Strategies.
Local level: On behalf of the Emergency Shelter Cluster and in collaboration with UN-Habitat and IFRC, GRIP supported Tijuana in Mexico, Kathmandu in Nepal and Maputo in Mozambique to carry out Urban Risk Assessments that were being applied to prepare Pre-Disaster shelter plans.

Improved National coordination and institutionalization leading to transformational change:

Armenia: With the support of GRIP, UNDP-Armenia is assisting the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MoES) in the establishment of a National Disaster Observatory (NDO) as a sustainable institution for the systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of disaster data to support national DRR policies and strategies. In April this year, the Minister of Emergency Situations has signed the decree on the establishment of the NDO as part of the Crisis Management Center of Armenia. The NDO will be integrated into the National DRM Strategy to strengthen Disaster Data Management in the country.
Bosnia: the Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is leading the establishment of the NDO with the support of GRIP and UNDP-BiH. The NDO will provide key information to national and regional operational centers 112 to support decision making processes at national and regional levels, as agreed in Belgrade in May 2010.
Mozambique: During the First-phase of a comprehensive, multi-year Risk Assessment Programme aimed at producing a National DRM Strategy and DRM and Contingency Action Plans for Maputo, the capital city, national institutions have developed a 30-year historical disaster loss database, the National Risk Information System, and the Risk Assessment for Maputo. These products will be submitted to the Government of Mozambique in a National Workshop presided by the Prime Minister that will be held in May 2011. The second phase of the programme will be officially launched at the mentioned event.

Integrated support and partnership creation:

With the main objective of Delivering as One in Risk Assessment, GRIP is leading an inter-agency partnership with WHO, UNICEF, IFRC, UN-Habitat, UNHCR and UNISDR. This partnership is organizing a Side Event at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction that will be held in Geneva in May 2011 to showcase the risk assessment achievements in selected countries and present Nepal as a pilot project for inter-agency integrated country support.
GRIP has signed an agreement with the Geneva International Service and the Swiss Association of Engineers and Architects to have Swiss experts providing capacity development and technology transfer to local institutions and experts in Mozambique and assisting them in the implementation of the National Flood Risk Assessment. The work will start in May 2011 and will be partially funded by the USD 500,000 contribution by the Geneva International Service.
GRIP has signed an agreement with Shanghai National University to establish a GRIP Center of Excellence with funds provided by the Chinese Government. Besides the creation of the Center of Excellence, the agreement contemplates development of practices in disaster risk assessments in China, within GRIP’s methodological framework; provision of technical support and services to other countries to enhance South-South Collaboration in disaster risk assessments, with a focus on capacity development; and implementation of joint fund raising activities to support the agreed collaboration.

HOW WE WORK

GRIP'S DISASTER RISK ASSESSMENT (DRA) SOLUTION TO COUNTRIES

To assist the countries with these activities, the GRIP has developed a comprehensive solution package for disaster risk assessment, which consists of 5 areas of technical support and services:

Systematic Inventory and Evaluation for Risk Assessment (SIERA) – SIERA is to support the country to understand its current situation, issues and challenges, strengths and weaknesses, gaps and external needs, etc, in the context of disaster risk assessments, aiming to create clearly-defined baselines for formulating realistic and reasonable implementation plans for disaster risk assessments.
National Disaster Observatory (NDO) - NDO is to support the establishment of a sustainable institution, which includes a nation-wide network of disaster observers, for the systematic collection, compilation, and interpretation of historic disaster-related data, providing sound inputs to better disaster preparedness and response that can be incorporated into the national DRM/R strategy.
National Risk Assessment (NRA) - NRA is to support the country to create a comprehensive national disaster risk profile for formulating evidence-based national strategy for DRM/R.
Urban Risk Assessment (URA) - URA is to support urban or municipal administrations to generate a sound evidence of disasters and risks for their urban and contingency planning.
Capacity for Risk assessment (CRA) - CRA is to support the country to develop a sustainable mechanism for risk assessment by enhancing the capabilities of national institutes based on a learning-by-doing approach.

All the above-listed 5 services can be implemented either entirely or partially, depending on the capability level of the countries and their special needs for risk information. For the time being, the solution package has been already applied in several countries. For example, in the GRIP Demonstration Countries (i.e. Mozambique, Ecuador, and Sri Lanka), the whole package is being implemented, whereas Armenia, funded by BPAC/UNDP, is implementing risk assessment activities as the first phase of a 5-year comprehensive DRM program.

For most countries, it would be a good practice to start Disaster Risk Assessments (DRA) with carrying out a Systematic Inventory and Evaluation for Risk Assessment (SIERA) to have a standard diagnosis of the current situation in DRM/R, identifying needs and assessing existing capacities. Accordingly, GRIP has developed a methodology for the Systematic Inventory and Evaluation for Risk Assessment (SIERA) whose implementation takes 3-6 months, depending on the country political situation and technical expertise. The results of SIERA not only serve as a good basis to understand the situation from where we are starting and also to start engaging authorities and stakeholders, but also can be presented at an open workshop to get the agreement and support on the activities that would follow up.

Regarding the way to implement the solution package, GRIP would provide the methodologies, training, technical support and advice, and coordination assistance that could be required. Since the main objective is to build local capacity, especially at the institutional level, it will be important to engage national and local institutions, rather than individuals, for the implementation of these activities. By doing so, we will promote the incorporation of these activities into the regular activities of the local institutions, which in many cases have already the mandate to be working on these issues. Through this, we will be trying to ensure sustainability of these activities. It is the only way. With consultants, one can get the results but no capability remains and the effort is usually not more than an isolated, no sustainable activity. Additionally, working with national institutions results in much lower costs since the relevant institutions will use their own staff who are going to be trained and will continue working for the organization in the long-term but with increased capacities and knowledge. Any funding provided to the institutions will serve for institution strengthening rather than going to individuals.

COUNTRY SUPPORT FACTSHEETS

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