Global frameworks for disaster risk reduction: from Yokohama to Sendai

The first principle

Hazards cross borders but the knowledge to reduce their harm is shared, so countries have agreed on common goals for reducing disaster risk. Over three decades those agreements moved from managing disasters after they happen to managing the risk that causes them, and from promises to targets that can be measured. The Sendai Framework, which runs to 2030, is the latest step, and India's own plans and its global initiatives are built around it.

The core

From a decade to a framework

• The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). The United Nations General Assembly declared the 1990s a decade for reducing natural disasters, the first global attempt to treat disasters as a development problem and not only a humanitarian one.
• The Yokohama Strategy (1994). The first World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, held in Yokohama, Japan, in May 1994, adopted the Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World. It said that prevention, mitigation and preparedness are better than response and that each country is primarily responsible for protecting its people.
• The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2000). The decade gave way to a standing strategy with a United Nations secretariat in Geneva, renamed the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in 2019, which now leads the global agenda.

The Hyogo Framework for Action (2005 to 2015)

• Adopted in January 2005 at the second World Conference in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, weeks after the Indian Ocean tsunami, the framework aimed at building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters.
• Five priorities. Make disaster risk reduction a national and local priority with a strong institutional basis; identify, assess and monitor risks and enhance early warning; use knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety; reduce the underlying risk factors; and strengthen preparedness for effective response. India's Disaster Management Act 2005 and its new authorities were built in the same years and on the same logic.
• The gap. Hyogo set no numerical targets, so progress was hard to measure, and losses kept rising as exposure grew faster than risk was reduced.

The Sendai Framework (2015 to 2030)

• Adopted in March 2015 at the third World Conference in Sendai, Japan, and endorsed by the General Assembly in June 2015, it is a voluntary, non binding agreement. Its expected outcome is a substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods, health and assets, and its scope covers small and large, frequent and rare, sudden and slow onset disasters caused by natural or man made hazards, including environmental, technological and biological hazards.
• Four priorities for action. Understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to build back better in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
• Seven global targets. Four ask countries to reduce deaths, the number of people affected, direct economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product (GDP), and damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services such as health and education. Three ask them to increase the number of countries with national and local strategies by 2020, international cooperation with developing countries, and access to multi hazard early warning systems and risk information. Countries report on 38 indicators through the online Sendai Framework Monitor.
• Shared responsibility. The state has the primary role, but Sendai asks it to share responsibility with local governments, the private sector, scientists, communities, women, youth and persons with disabilities, an approach often called all of society.

Dimensions

• Climate. The Paris Agreement of December 2015 set a global goal on adaptation in Article 7 and, in Article 8, recognised loss and damage from climate change, naming early warning systems, emergency preparedness, slow onset events and risk insurance as areas for cooperation. Disaster risk reduction is therefore adaptation in practice, and Sendai and Paris share the same tools.
• Development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in September 2015, carry disaster targets of their own: building the resilience of the poor (target 1.5), reducing deaths and losses from disasters in cities (11.5) and strengthening resilience to climate related hazards (13.1). These targets are measured with Sendai indicators, and target 11.b names the Sendai Framework, so one set of data serves both.
• Financial. Losses fall hardest on developing countries, which have least insurance and fiscal space, so Sendai's target on international cooperation and the climate funds for loss and damage decide whether poorer countries can invest in prevention.
• Technological. Satellites, mobile phones and cell broadcast make it possible to warn almost everyone, which is why early warning has become the most concrete global promise; the tools are covered in the note on geospatial technology.
• Infrastructure. Roads, power, telecommunications and hospitals built today will face the hazards of the next fifty years, so resilient infrastructure is the cheapest point at which to reduce future risk.

In practice

Taking stock and closing the warning gap

• The midterm review (2023). At a high level meeting in New York in May 2023, the General Assembly adopted a political declaration on the midterm review of Sendai. The review found that 125 countries had national disaster risk reduction strategies and that disaster death rates had fallen, partly because of better early warning, but that the number of people affected and economic losses were rising and about half of all countries still lacked multi hazard early warning systems.
• Early Warnings for All. Announced by the United Nations Secretary General in March 2022 and given an executive action plan at the climate conference in November 2022, the initiative aims to protect everyone on Earth with early warning systems by the end of 2027. It rests on four pillars, each led by an agency: risk knowledge (UNDRR), detection and forecasting (the World Meteorological Organization, WMO), dissemination and communication (the International Telecommunication Union, ITU) and preparedness to respond (the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC).

India's role

• The Ten Point Agenda (2016). At the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in New Delhi in November 2016, the first such meeting after Sendai, the Prime Minister set out ten points: risk reduction principles in all development; risk coverage for all, from poor households to nations; women's leadership; global risk mapping; use of technology; a network of universities; social media and mobile technology; building on local capacity; learning from every disaster; and greater cohesion in international response.
• The National Disaster Management Plan (2016) was India's first national plan and was explicitly aligned with the four Sendai priorities, which its 2019 revision kept.
• The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). Announced by India at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York in September 2019, with its secretariat in New Delhi, CDRI is a partnership of national governments, United Nations agencies, development banks, the private sector and research bodies. It had 72 members, 59 of them countries, by 2026, and runs the Infrastructure for Resilient Island States initiative, launched at the Glasgow climate conference in 2021, and the Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator Fund, launched in 2022.
• The G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group. India created the G20's first working group on disaster risk reduction during its presidency in 2023, with its first meeting in Gandhinagar. It set five priorities: global coverage of early warning systems, disaster resilient infrastructure, national financing frameworks for risk reduction, stronger national and global response systems, and ecosystem based approaches.
• A first responder abroad. India sends search and rescue teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to neighbours and partners, as in Operation Dost after the Türkiye earthquakes of February 2023 and Operation Brahma after the Myanmar earthquake of March 2025.

Issues and way forward

• Voluntary and off track. Sendai has no penalties, and the midterm review found progress too slow on several targets, mainly because exposure in cities and coasts keeps growing faster than risk is reduced; national targets tied to budgets and annual reporting to parliaments would add pressure.
• Data gaps. Many countries cannot report economic losses or damage to infrastructure, so the targets on economic loss and damage to infrastructure are hard to track; national disaster loss databases, such as the one India's 2025 amendment requires, are the first step.
• Money goes to response. Most international disaster funding still pays for relief rather than prevention; ring fenced prevention budgets, risk insurance and blended finance through bodies such as CDRI are the remedies discussed.
• Two tracks that should be one. Disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation are often handled by different ministries and funds; joint national plans, as Sendai and the Paris Agreement both urge, would avoid duplication.
• The last mile. Early warnings reach phones and sirens but not always the poor, the elderly or persons with disabilities; Early Warnings for All will be judged by whether people act on warnings, not by how many are sent.

Common confusions

• Hyogo and Sendai. Hyogo (2005 to 2015) had five priorities and no numerical targets; Sendai (2015 to 2030) has four priorities and seven targets, and widened the scope to man made and biological hazards.
• UNDRR and UNDP. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction coordinates the Sendai agenda and its monitoring, while the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) funds and runs recovery and resilience projects in countries.
• CDRI and the International Solar Alliance. Both are India led initiatives, but CDRI is about making infrastructure resilient to disasters, while the International Solar Alliance promotes solar energy.
• Sendai targets and SDG targets. Sendai's seven targets are specific to disasters; the SDGs contain disaster targets (1.5, 11.5, 13.1) that are measured with Sendai indicators, so the two share data but are separate agreements.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: disaster risk reduction, Hyogo Framework, Sendai Framework, four priorities, seven global targets, build back better, all of society approach, midterm review, Early Warnings for All, multi hazard early warning, UNDRR, CDRI, Ten Point Agenda, loss and damage, G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: The midterm review of the Sendai Framework in 2023 found that about half of all countries still lacked multi hazard early warning systems, which is why the United Nations has set out to cover everyone with warnings by 2027.
  • Introduction with a framework: The Sendai Framework 2015 to 2030 shifted the global focus from managing disasters to managing risk, with seven targets that can be measured.
  • Conclusion: India's Ten Point Agenda, CDRI and the G20 working group show that a country exposed to many hazards can also lead the global effort to reduce them.
  • Conclusion: With Sendai, Paris and the SDGs all ending around 2030, reducing disaster risk is now the common ground on which development and climate action meet.