Annual Event 2021: The Role of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Humanitarian-Development Nexus

Linking concepts, connecting stakeholders, strengthening resilience 

The need for increased coordination and alignment of humanitarian response and development cooperation has been highlighted for decades, often with a particular reference to disaster risk reduction as a linking element. At the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, policy makers and practitioners eventually urged implementers, policy- and decision-makers to abandon their silos and finally ensure the long-demanded improved connectivity between humanitarian and development efforts, also considering the dimension of peace-building as a triple nexus.  

Five years down the line, we are curious: How have the promises and pledges made influenced programming and funding as well as operations on the ground? And how are recent initiatives embedded and connected with the working context of the DRR-community, which has been working towards resilience building for decades already? 

As the Swiss NGO DRR Platform, those questions are addressing the very heart of our work, reason why we discussed them at the virtual annual event on the humanitarian-development nexus and its linkages to disaster risk reduction. 

What we aimed for

1. Increase understanding of the need for, potentials and challenges of the humanitarian-development nexus, in policy and on the ground, emphasizing the implications for collaboration and alignment in different risk contexts.  
   
2. Discuss concrete approaches and instruments that aim for more effective risk reduction, preparedness and response bridging the humanitarian-development-divide 
   
3. Analyse how DRR and the humanitarian-development nexus are complementary and mutually beneficial, both in our operations and institutionally, in order to increase efficient use of scarce resources and effectiveness to counter the urgent problems in a sustainable and risk-sensitive way.