National Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction - UNDRR Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia Overview

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction stresses the need for better governance of risk, in which the State has the primary role in reducing disaster risk. Building resilience to disasters also brings together the responsibilities of many sectors, stakeholders and levels of governance.

By ensuring effective coordination of disaster risk reduction at national level, National Platforms play an instrumental role in ensuring an all-of-government and all-of-society approach to reducing risk and building resilience. These efforts are intimately tied to the coordination efforts at local level (ex. Local platforms), as well as supranational level (ex. European Forum for DRR).

Through the drive and coordination of National Sendai Focal Points, the platforms have a crucial role in coordinating strategies, policies, actions, reporting etc. to ensure a more coherent implementation of risk reduction priorities, critical to the implementation and monitoring of the Sendai Framework.

Across the Europe Region, composed of 55 UN Member Countries, 37 National Platforms for DRR are in place. The structure of these coordination mechanisms, as well as their legal status, budgets, scope and level of activity, vary across countries. Nevertheless, all aim to ensure multi-stake- holder engagement in building resilience at national level, by implementing DRR measures and main- streaming risk reduction dimensions across relevant sectorial policies, programs and instruments.

The report brings together country fact sheets for all 37 National Plat- forms reported thus far by National Sendai Focal Point. This living document offers an overview of the main dimensions of these coordination mechanisms, allowing for an exchange of good practices, the development of synergies and the possibility for stronger engagement across countries of the Europe region.

Strengthening the landscape of National Platforms is a pre-condition for effective implementation of the Sendai Framework at regional level, including through the coordination of DRR through the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction.