United Kingdom peer review report 2013 - Building resilience to disasters: implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015)

This report presents the first peer review undertaken to assess progress in the implementation at national level of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters (HFA), under which Member States of the United Nations have committed to policy action. It aims to: 1) establish state-of-the-art approaches to each of the HFA Priorities for Action; 2) identify good practices and shortcomings/areas needing improvement; and 3) develop recommendations to achieve further progress.

The report takes advantage of a policy exchange among peers, as a governance tool, to facilitate the exchange of best practices, examining the performance of the ‘reviewed country’ in a rigorous and consistent framework. It is intended to be presented at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (21-23 May, 2013 Geneva) and other international and European forums with the objective to promote the peer reviews as an effective tool for exchanging experience between countries in disaster risk management and monitoring the implementation of agreed commitments. The development of such monitoring tools could be reinforced and included as part of a post-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action and within the further development of EU cooperation in disaster management.

The UK volunteered to be reviewed in its implementation of the HFA at the 2nd European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction in Skopje in 2011. In September 2012, a peer review mission took place in the United Kingdom by a peer review team consisting of representatives from Finland, Italy and Sweden and a joint Secretariat (formed by the European Commission, UNISDR, and OECD). During the mission more than 90 persons including representatives from 45 entities such as government departments, NGOs and businesses across the UK were interviewed.