Comprehensive disaster and climate risk management (CRM)

Turning policy coherence into action

Effective risk governance, marked by robust institutions and inclusive policy and legal frameworks, requires a systems approach to preventing and reducing risks, adapting to a changing climate, and addressing losses and damages.

UNDRR seeks to secure more effective and efficient use of time, effort and resources and to deliver inclusive DRR and climate action, aligning global agendas and supporting countries to adopt and implement governance and financial systems to achieve their resilience goals. The UNDRR Strategic Framework 2026-2030 calls under objective 2.1 that "governments at all levels strengthen and implement multi-hazard disaster and climate risk governance frameworks".

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By the end of 2025 - 141 countries reported national DRR strategies, representing over 70% of nations worldwide (See Global Status of National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies. Governance in action: towards resilient and risk-informed development).

What is Comprehensive Risk Management (CRM)?

Risk-blind planning creates new risks and maladaptation. Hence, risk reduction requires climate information, and climate action will not be successful without risk reduction. The Sendai Framework's Midterm Review calls for adaptive governance that integrates risk management across sectors, with coherent, stakeholder-driven policies aligned with development goals — a call reinforced at the 8th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2025.

CRM is a holistic approach to managing the risks associated with both climatic and non-climatic hazards across varied time scales and levels. It seeks to build long-term resilience among countries and communities in vulnerable conditions, considering the full spectrum of extreme and slow-onset events, as well as their resulting impacts. It involves fostering active collaboration among government institutions, non-state actors and other stakeholders to enhance and foster coherence and synergies between climate action, efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and a wide spectrum of DRR measures.

UNDRR is committed to supporting countries in achieving a risk-informed and integrated approach to sustainable development by promoting and facilitating coherent DRR and climate action across international, regional, national and local policies, plans and strategies, platforms and individual initiatives.

A holistic approach to translate policy coherence into national and local action through CRM can be based on the following steps:

  • Step 1: Policy analysis of DRR, climate action and sustainable development plans and policy frameworks at the global, national, sectoral, and sub-national levels.
  • Step 2: Convening governmental bodies, academia, civil society and other key stakeholders engaged in resilience building to develop a shared understanding of gaps and opportunities in coherent actions.
  • Step 3: Joint risk understanding to enhance knowledge and awareness of past, present and future impacts of climate change and disaster risk.
  • Step 4: Coherent planning through developing joint or aligned DRR and climate change policies and plans, linking with relevant global processes and mechanisms.
  • Step 5: Implementation and finance by facilitating an enabling environment for the implementation of coherent policies and plans, including linking with sectors and financing options.

Climate change and disasters threaten sustainable development, disproportionately impacting developing countries and communities in vulnerable conditions. Addressing this challenge is at the center of the Comprehensive Risk Mangement (CRM) approach.

CRM is anchored in the Sendai Framework, Paris Agreement, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, providing a strong foundation for holistic action. It is also inherent in the three Rio Conventions: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), and the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

In this context, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) under the Paris Agreement provides a shared direction for strengthening adaptive capacity, resilience and risk reduction, reinforcing the need for integrated approaches across sectors and systems. The effectiveness of the CRM approach relies on these elements being adequately integrated into planning, implementation and financing frameworks across and within sectors and systems.

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At COP30, CRM was selected as a solution to accelerate climate action under the COP 30 Global Climate Action Agenda, led by UNDRR and the Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP).

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Advocacy, coordination and engagements

UNDRR further leverages its engagement in formal and intergovernmental processes at the global level to guide national and local planning, and applies country experiences to inform global processes – thereby creating a policy-practice feedback loop. Key UNFCCC Constituent Bodies relevant to CRM include the Adaptation Committee (AC), Least Developed Countries Expert Group (LEG), and the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damage, including in its Technical Expert Group on Comprehensive Risk Management (TEG-CRM). CRM also constitutes a concrete UNDRR offering to the Santiago Network and the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) .

CRM contributes to global networks as well; for instance, UNDRR offers CRM as a programmatic approach to help the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) achieve its Target 1; UNDRR co-leads the working group.
The programme follows a partnership approach to planning and implementation to ensure outputs are operationalized by governments and partners organisations, including those engaged in sectoral risk management and adaptation(e.g. agrifood and environment sectors). UNDRR also actively participates in relevant UN inter-agency mechanisms and initiatives for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction to identify gaps and complement efforts. 

Contact the UNDRR Bonn Office

Today, more than ever, achieving sustainable development and successfully reducing disaster risk through the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction depends on policy coherence across sectors and on aligning disaster risk reduction with climate action. By monitoring targets and related indicators of the Sendai Framework, the UNDRR Bonn Office advocates and promotes synergies between DRR, climate action and ultimately sustainable development.

BONN, GERMANY

UNDRR Office in Bonn
UN Campus
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1
53113 Bonn
Germany
Phone: +49 228 8152000
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.undrr.org/bonn

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