ReliefWeb

Executive Summary

This review focuses on disaster loss and damage database implementation at country and regional levels. It documents UNDP’s role in the institutionalization of such systems and examines all known, publically-accessible regional and country-level databases’ contents. The findings and lessons provide a basis for a set of conclusions and recommendations to enhance the quality, credibility and usability of these data with the aim of informing future UNDP and international support in this area.

Systems for tracking loss and damage associated with natural hazard events are in place in over 57 countries. Over time, the data provide a basis for monitoring loss and damage spatial patterns and temporal trends, calibrating investments in disaster risk management, and evaluating the efficacy of risk reduction measures. Loss and damage data also provide input for calculating risks of future losses.

Loss and damage data constitute the principal outcome indicator for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and the main international DRR policy framework, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA). They are also a key input for disaster risk and risk management research. The vast majority of disaster loss and damage globally is associated with hydrometeorological hazards. Increasingly loss and damage has become a priority issue in the context of international climate change negotiations. Thus these data are both important for country-level DRR as well as being of growing importance in the international policy arena.

Many, although not all, regional and country level databases are currently implemented with international support including by UNDP, UNISDR, and CRED among others. Supporting the institutionalization of systems to track disaster losses and damage over time at country level has been a major area of work for UNDP over the past decade. To date UNDP has supported the development of 25 databases covering all regions (see Annex 1). UNDP support has ranged from limited, one-off contributions (i.e. UNDP provided financial support for the development of the databases of El Salvador, Egypt and Bangladesh) to comprehensive, long-term support in establishing, institutionalizing and maintaining the database (financial support, training and technical advisory were provided by UNDP to Armenia, Mozambique, Indonesia and Sri Lanka for example). These experiences have highlighted the need for sustained engagement at country level in order to institutionalize maintenance and use of the data. More importantly, UNDP experience suggests that support for these systems is best provided within the context of a larger overall programme of disaster risk management capacity development. The benefit of this approach is that the capacities acquired lead to data improvements, and, at the same time, the data also become an increasingly effective resource for disaster reduction.

Despite significant progress over the past two decades, a review of currently accessible databases reveals a number of issues with respect to data completeness and currency, quality assurance and access.