Foreword
As we write this, Africa is suffering from the strongest El Niño it has faced in decades, causing major floods and droughts throughout Africa, leading to rising economic losses and major impacts on the lives and livelihoods of millions across the continent. Countries across the continent are declaring states of emergency, and are calling on the international community for support.
Such crises in Africa are becoming the new norm as the impacts of disasters continue to increase. Natural disasters, such as droughts, oods, landslides, storms, and earthquakes are a regular occurrence, and climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of weather-related hazards even further. The impacts of natural disasters and climate change are further compounded by poorly planned development – as the fastest urbanizing continent in the world, Africa faces a huge challenge as people and assets continue to be placed in harm’s way.
Forced to face these challenges, African countries are emerging as strong leaders in driving the resilience agenda forward by reforming their emergency management systems, establishing new legislation for risk reduction, modernizing early warning and preparedness systems, exploring innovative risk financing solutions, and shaping the global and regional policy dialogue.
In our support to African countries, and in alignment with our twin goals of ending poverty and enhancing shared prosperity, the World Bank is stepping up its e orts to systematically invest in disaster and climate resilience, as highlighted in the Africa Climate Business Plan launched at COP21 in Paris. To illustrate this engagement, the plan intends to bring early warning systems to 100 million people across 15 African countries and pilot new urban resil- ience approaches.
These ambitious targets cannot be achieved without broad-based partnerships and cooper- ation e World Bank works with the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities, as well as technical agencies to promote coordinated and comprehensive approaches to managing common disaster and climate risks. In addition, partnerships with international organizations, bilateral donors, and major regional development partners – such as the African Development Bank – are ramping up resilience activities across the continent the World Bank’s Africa Disaster Risk Management program could not have achieved as much as it has to date without the strong sup- port of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduc- tion and Recovery (GFDRR), and its donors, particularly the European Union and Japan, who have boosted the program’s impact in recent years.
This Strategic Framework 2016–20 clearly articulates the way forward in increasing knowledge, capacity building and advocacy, partnerships and investments, as we collectively strive toward disaster and climate resilient development in Africa We thank all partners and institutions who have contributed to the development of the Framework, and look forward to joining forces on its implementation.