In many regions, disaster risk is continuing to increase, mostly because greater numbers of vulnerable people and assets are located in exposed areas. It is vital to start reversing these trends. Over the next 18 months, there will be negotiation and hopefully agreement of three major international policy frameworks, each with a key interest in reducing disaster risk and minimising disaster losses. These are 1) the post-2015 framework on disaster risk reduction(DRR); 2) the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– a way of prioritising development actions; and 3)an international agreement on climate change – to establish global action on tackling climate change beyond 2020. If well integrated, these frameworks should be able to provide a unique opportunity to deliver a coherent strategy and implementation plan to address the drivers of disaster risk.A key way of linking these frameworks, particularly the SDGs and the post-2015 framework on DRR,lies in establishing common global goals, targets and indicators in relation to reducing disaster risks and losses.
Such measures can provide a focus for action, away of tracking progress and an opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of investments. A single set of targets and indicators spanning the SDGs and the post-2015 framework on DRR would clarify priorities, increase logic and coherence and minimise the amount of work required to develop monitoring and reporting capacity. Hence, we consider the options available. The report investigates a set of possible components for this common target and indicator set, drawing on different evidence to establish potential numerical targets. It considers the data challenges of establishing such targets and how to improve the collection of data on disasters and disaster risk. It ends with ten recommendations on how post-2015 policy frameworks can support the development of a global monitoring system to track changing disaster risk and disaster losses. The international agreement on climate change has different, though linked targets to theSDGs and post-2015 framework on DRR – and this report does not consider these. However, reducing the impact of climate change will be key to ensure that,even with the successful achievement of predeterminedDRR targets, disaster risk does not continue to increase in the future.
