ISDR Asia Partnership (IAP) meeting, December 2014, Bangkok02-04 December 2014

Sujit MohantyUNISDR ROAP

ISDR Asia Partnership

IAP- Brief history

• An informal multi-stakeholder forum with the role to facilitate implementation of DRR and HFA in the Asia region.

• Launched in 2003 with 4 UN agencies and 2 technical organization

• Subsequently expanded in 2007 including regional inter governmental organizations, governments, civil society organizations, UN and international organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors.

• Since 2007, the IAP has emerged as the support mechanism for the Asia Regional Platform for DRR.

• 2008 onwards - Already evolved as the major regional partnership mechanism. Main consultative mechanism for AMCDRR

• Grown from 10 participants to more than 100 participants

IAP- Role so far• Support the political leadership of the regional platform through

series of Asia Ministerial Conferences (AMC- DRR)

• Support the biennial HFA progress review at national and regional level

• Improve regional coordination and coherence through regional mapping and stock taking exercises

• Major partnership forum in AP on DRR

• UNISDR AP office as the secretariat supporting the partnership

• UNISDR role has been in convening the governments and partners twice a year (with more than 90-100 participants)

ISDR Asia Partnership survey: Overview of analysis (Survey conducted for IAP meeting- September 2011)

 The main points came out from the survey are: More than 90% (40) organizations mentioned that the IAP has been useful for their organization.88 % (35) mentioned that the IAP has been effective as a partnership forum in the region.Members feel that the most useful part of all the past IAP meetings has been (in order of usefulness): 1) the discussion on the Asia Ministerial Conferences, 2) Regional stock taking and partners briefing, 3) experience sharing, 4) Discussion on HFA monitoring and review.84% organizations feel that the issues discussed in the IAP are of interest to their own organizations.More than 90% organizations agreed that the IAP is an effective mechanism to support the regional platform/ the Asia Ministerial conferences.Majority of the members (about 77%) regarded IAP as a Community of Practice.In terms of the IAP’s importance, about 76% of survey participants/ organizations expressed an interest in hosting the IAP meeting on a rotation basis and wanted to make the IAP membership as a formal process.

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Bangkok declaration• facilitate the partnership among all stakeholders towards the development of

the ‘Asia-Pacific regional HFA2 implementation plan’;

• continue to convene the Regional Platform and function as the secretariat of the ISDR Asia Partnership;

• provide technical stewardship and generate evidence, in collaboration with governments and partners, to support the HFA2 implementation;

• establish a technical working group within the ISDR Asia Partnership (IAP) to undertake a study to promote linkages and synergies of national, sub-regional and regional disaster risk reduction strategies and plans in Asia and the Pacific;

Challenges and the required shift

• Resource requirements of the secretariat and sustaining the partnership becoming challenging

• With evolving and growing stakeholder engagement , a balance of conversation required

• More emphasis on implementation requires technical and thematic discussion

• With the growing partnership base more focus required • With a demanding agenda experience sharing, technical/ thematic

deliberation are currently low on agenda• With the change in the requirements of the regional implementation of HFA2 ,

IAP need to be strengthened • Partnership to be strengthened and

Thinking differently…• What should be to role of IAP?( How you perceive?)

• Information sharing platform?• Decision making forum?• Consultation mechanism?• Platform for technical / thematic leadership?• …..?

• What change is required to address the need for implementation of HFA2

• How you as a stakeholder would like to plan to contribute? (capacity, knowledge input, human and financial resource to support activities / implementation, lead in hosting the forum, ….)

• How governments can provide support the forum (hosting/ chairing on rotation basis ….?)