Annual Report 2013 Inroads to Resilience / 1
A Transition Year for GFDRR In December 2012 GFDRR adopted its second partnership strategy, covering 2013-2015. GFDRR also established a work plan (2014-2016) to implement it. The work plan responds to priorities articulated by disaster-prone countries, and the plans that GFDRR’s implementing partners have in place to scale up efforts in building resilience in these countries.
The successful implementation of this plan will mean that at least 34 highly vulnerable countries—representing a total population of over one billion people—will be better able to cope with and adapt to the effects of natural hazards and climate risks. With sustained investments in disaster risk management, these countries should see a long-term reduction in disaster losses. The achievement of this goal requires that GFDRR prioritize two actions. First, GFDRR must realign its working structure and grant-making system around the strategy’s Five Pillars of Action: risk identification, risk reduction, preparedness, financial protection, and resilient recovery. Secondly, GFDRR must overhaul its monitoring and evaluation system to better evaluate the impact of its interventions, a major focus according to the new work plan.
In this context, FY13 became an important transition year for GFDRR. During FY13, GFDRR laid the foundation for operationalizing the new strategy, work plan, and monitoring and evaluation framework. This included an extensive analysis and re-categorization of its portfolio to create a baseline against which to measure progress over the next three years. GFDRR also began the overhauling of its web-based results management system to ensure new projects are designed with clearer results frameworks, including standard indicators that will enable better results tracking. These actions, to be continued and completed in FY14, will ensure that the grants and operational support provided by GFDRR is actually achieving what its partner countries are demanding assistance with, which is the improved capacity and know-how to bring about real policy reform of and investment in disaster risk management.
Going forward, GFDRR’s ability to assess the impact of its work and the programs it supports will quickly expand beyond initial results—such as meetings, workshops, and new policies—towards measuring real, concrete improvements in the resilience of people and countries to natural disasters, the overall goal of the GFDRR program.