Emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ebola outbreaks emphasize the need for a multi-sector and multi-hazardapproach. They also stress the importance of preparedness capacities across socio-economic sectors from water, sanitation and hygiene to infrastructure. Finally such emergencies invite us to focus on addressing the underlying risk drivers and urge us to scale up protection efforts to safeguard the most vulnerable from abuse and discrimination in times of crisis.
The CADRI Partners are jointly developing a new capacity diagnosis and planning tool to help countries improve their systems, skills and technologies to manage multi-dimensional risks and address underlying risk drivers across a wide range of socio-economic sectors. The revision of the CADRI tool is also driven by the willingness to make disaster risk reduction efforts more responsive to the needs and demands of the most vulnerable population groups.
The COVID-19 response has highlighted the importance of integrated systems for risk identification and mapping, information management, early warning, or crisis communication. The reality is that in many countries the coordination of the COVID-19 response is disconnected from the disaster preparedness, response and recovery architecture - a missed opportunity to leverage existing infrastructure and capacities.
In this respect, the capacity diagnosis facilitated by the CADRI Partnership in the Republic of Mauritius identified specific recommendations to reduce biological threats – ranging from establishing Biosafety Level 3 laboratory capacity, to conducting a nationwide pandemic simulation – but also to further integrate the management of public health emergencies with the disaster risk management system. Similarly, the review of the draft National DRR Strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran also pointed out that a pandemic, like any disaster, can rely on the disaster management system when it comes to information management, multi-sectoral needs assessment, recovery planning, or community-based DRM.
For 2020, the CADRI Partnership Board approved a budget of US$ 871,590 to scale up country support to all regions, deepen the regionalization of CADRI services to countries, and strengthen impact monitoring at country level. The COVID-19 pandemic forces us to re-assess our priorities and implement new ways of working. During the first quarter, we initiated a review of the CADRI disaster preparedness service line and the development of a national government-led post-disaster after-action-review methodology.
In the second quarter, we will test virtual inter-agency country support and explore the feasibility of live e-consultations with country stakeholders. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for refocusing the work of the Partnership to bring it closer to the needs on the ground.