By Lily Yumagulova and Carly Benson
Margareta Wahlström served as the first Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (or UNDRR, which was known as UNISDR at the time) since her appointment in 2008. She led the development of the 2015-2030 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, adopted in March 2015 at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan. It was the first such agreement to set targets for reductions in disaster losses including mortality, numbers of people affected, economic losses and damage to critical infrastructure.
Image credit: CRHNet
HazNet’s managing editor Lily Yumagulova first interviewed Margareta at the Sixth Annual National Roundtable for Disaster Risk Reduction in Calgary in November 2015. Margareta stepped down as head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction later that year. As we passed a mid-term point with the Sendai Framework, Lily connected with her recently to hear about her perspective on how the Sendai Framework has been put into action.
On the progress so far
Lily: We are more than halfway through the Sendai Framework. In what areas have we made the greatest progress?
Margareta: We’ve made the greatest progress on the rapid spread of early warning systems. The focus has been on saving lives, but there is now a growing recognition that these systems must also protect people’s livelihoods. I’ve been quite impressed with how many have stepped up to this early warning challenge.
Another benefit is that we managed to get health, pandemics, and epidemics into the Sendai Framework, and the wisdom of that has already been proven. But I also feel we haven’t been able to leverage all of the useful things that went into the Sendai Framework because there are so many issues piling on to the international and national system.
Some of the benchmarks in the Sendai Framework may not have been really feasible. Was it reasonable to expect every country to have local disaster risk reduction plans? It was a dream, of course. But just because we haven’t reached these benchmarks doesn’t mean we haven’t made progress. Instead of looking at these as failures, we should ask, “What have we succeeded with?”
In geopolitics and domestic politics, the tendency for short-term thinking is so serious it has become dangerous. But we have seen positive change at the local level. Across the world, cities and people forming self-organizing communities are taking the initiative, they aren’t waiting for anyone to tell them what to do. You always need an enthusiastic group of people to drive things. But there is still a need for advocacy. For policy. For practical knowledge transfer. The Sendai Framework emphasizes that knowledge should be accessible and available; it must be presented in such a way that is helpful to normal people who are not experts. And we haven’t made enough progress here.
On the interconnectedness of conflict, hazards, and resilience
Lily: With the benefit of hindsight, is there something you would have done differently? Is something missing from the Sendai Framework?
Margareta: Well, the most obvious one is the link between conflict, hazards and disasters, and risk resilience. This was a tough part of the negotiations, and many regions wanted it included, but some governments didn’t due to geopolitics. On the more positive side, this is a growing area of research, particularly the link between conflict and the more obvious climate issues.
Recognizing interconnectedness here is so important because of the compound impacts on financial capacity, on development, on sustainability, and people’s lives. This is an arena that still needs further work and we need to talk about in a more practical manner.
Lily: How has the nature of disasters changed since 2015?
Margareta: We as human beings can be very optimistic. We tend to believe that the same thing doesn’t happen twice in the same place. But these days, it does. And we’ve also seen a rapid acceleration of compounding impacts on households, where it isn’t just damage from a disaster but the impact on people’s health and livelihoods too.
What we had predicted in 10 to 15 years is already here.
We’re starting to see entire regions of the world become unlivable. Huge cities are sinking because they’ve been built in river mouths. And while governments are starting to move their capital cities elsewhere, can we really expect 10 million people to move? And how do we ensure enough productivity to keep communities sustainable? There is a growing realization that all these effects are coming together and making the situation even more complex.
On the ‘marginalized majority’ and the importance of language
Lily: One of the successes of the Framework was focus on empowerment. For example, Sendai Priority 4 clearly states that: “Empowering women and persons with disabilities to publicly lead and promote gender equitable and universally accessible response, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction approaches is key”. Have we made progress in this realm?
Margareta: In the Sendai Framework, we worked so hard – and succeeded – to avoid the platitude of ‘vulnerable groups’. The framework emphasized the agency of people and communities, and it doesn’t matter if those people are women, Indigenous groups, people living with disability, etc. But now, this language of ‘vulnerable groups’ is back in force, even in the Sendai mid-term report. The issue with ‘vulnerable groups’ is the ease with which it is used to describe all people except, as someone said once, ‘able-bodied white men’. It reduces a wide range of vulnerabilities of different nature and of different contexts to one concept that is not well defined. It is important not to accept the simplicity of ‘vulnerable groups’ and to recognize the agency of people and not constantly reduce us to ‘victims’.
“There has been some progress towards Priority 1 of the Sendai Framework, including an increased understanding of risk, the use of climate risk and geographic information system (GIS) tools, more guided risk assessments, decentralization of roles and responsibilities, and the development of risk atlases. However, data availability is limited, including sector-specific data and limited access to sex-, age-, and disability-disaggregated data. There is a need for improvements in data collection, analysis, and data interoperability. The incorporation of ancestral and traditional knowledge in DRR has been limited, and only some engagement of traditionally marginalized or vulnerable groups has been achieved”.
(UNDRR, 2023. The Report of the Midterm Review of the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. UNDRR: Geneva, Switzerland, p. 75)
On taking a long-term perspective to disaster risk reduction
Lily: Originally you wanted the Sendai Framework to be for 30 years because 15 years was not enough time. So what do you see as the urgent priorities moving forward?
Margareta: I see a big opportunity for the business sector taking up this agenda. While there are valid criticisms of some companies and industries, we are in a period now where governments are weak. They can’t get anything done. So instead, we see business leading in risk reduction, in sustainability.
Originally, businesses took up these issues because their staff wanted it. Now, their clients want it. This represents a huge opportunity to drive change and not expect governments to do everything. Real progress on disaster risk reduction requires us to continue to work with those that control the economy.
There is also a significant role for academics to help us leverage the knowledge that already exists. Scientists often ask me “What can we do?” and my advice is the same: Learn how to write and communicate in a practical way to decision-makers. Don’t start a paper with 25 pages explaining your methodology. Start with what you really want people to know. We also need to aggregate data from local case studies to add to the collective knowledge base and give us something to build on to help us take the next big step.
Finally, we need to find a way to scale up Traditional Knowledge. So much of this is held at the local level, but global thinking could benefit from these insights. There’s a missing link connecting Traditional Knowledge with global policies.
On the role of youth
Lily: Having seen and led these processes over the years, what is your advice for youth?
Margareta: Be active. It can be so tempting to drown in hopelessness and become passive. So ask questions and find something that engages you, preferably with others. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but a way to create meaning and have a positive impact on the future. We should also think about how to reach out and support others, to engage with them, which is important for young people, middle-aged people, and elderly people.
The future might seem scary and we live on a planet that’s rapidly heating and drying. I’m sure this is on young people’s minds. But the only help for that is to talk about it, to learn more, to make choices, and to see the link between what you do and the bigger world, because what you do matters.
Bio
Margareta Wahlström has over 40 years of extensive national and international experience in humanitarian relief operations in disaster and conflict areas, and in institution-building to strengthen national capacity for disaster preparedness, response, and for risk reduction. Her academic background includes economic history, political science, social anthropology, archaeology and philosophy of science.
