Following the Sendai Framework guidance, UNDRR Regional office for Arab States has organized several coordination meetings to accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework in the region. The most recent declaration, the Tunis Declaration in 2018, which was adopted along with several stakeholder groups’ voluntary action statements, came out as the result of a series of successful coordination meetings. The aim of the bi-annual Arab Partnership for DRR meetings since 2017 has been to create a forum for technical and operational deliberation on the progress, challenges and gaps in the implementation of the Sendai Framework in the region. These periodic discussions on the implementation challenges, gaps and solutions intend to inform the deliberations of the Arab Regional Platform conferences.

The last partnership meeting, held in December 2019 in Cairo, Egypt, took stock of progress, challenges and opportunities in the implementation of the Sendai Framework in the Arab Region, specifically focusing on Target E of the Sendai Framework; and come up with agreed upon actions to accelerate progress. Participants also discussed identifying and scaling up innovative solutions towards climate risk management and integration of DRR and Climate Change in the SDGs.

The Regional Assessment Report is a starting point to address rapidly increasing disasters exposure in the Arab region towards addressing the challenges of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation within a broad framework of sustainable development and poverty reduction. The regional assessment report highlights the risk scenario, drivers of risk and its trends and how to adopt approaches based on broad participation and partnerships and to address underlying drivers of risk, such as declining ecosystems, vulnerable rural livelihoods and badly planned and managed urban development. The RAR also highlights the importance of investing in disaster risk reduction and the need to take risk informed decisions for sustainable development. RAR helps the national governments civil society and other stakeholders through strategic policy advice on how to address these challenges.