Result Area 2
The European Union and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States established in 2015 the Program “Building Disaster Resilience to natural Hazards in Sub-Saharan African Regions, Countries and Communities”. The Program consisted of five Result Areas, which were implemented by several partners and together made up a complete cycle of disaster risk management measures and capacity building.
Objective
The Result Area 2 Program achieved its objective by implementing activities that contributed to:
- Strengthening the coordination capacity of African Regional Economic Communities (RECs), in order to advance the regional Disaster Risk Management (DRM) agenda;
- Assisting RECs in developing planning and policy advisory capacities and knowledge dissemination capacities, so that RECs can better support their Member States in taking informed decisions about building resilience to disasters, and better support regional and sub-regional Programs on DRM; and
- Providing an advocacy platform and improving cooperation and networking among global, regional, and national technical institutions. In addition, leveraging additional outreach to stakeholders to support the development of national plans and to support the improvement of regional capacity for Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs) and recovery frameworks.
Through the Result Area 2 Program, RECs and their Member States’ governments, decision makers and DRM practitioners received access to technical knowledge and best operational practices from a wide range of stakeholders through comprehensive regional engagement. Activities under R2 support were aligned with the strategic approach articulated in African Union Commission's Program of Action, the RECs’ DRR strategies, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. Activities were implemented through an additional contribution to the ACP-EU NDRR Program.
Participating RECs
The activities targeted the four main RECs and their key partners, such as African universities and research centers, river basin authorities or technical organizations. The four participating RECs were:
ECCAS - the Economic Community for Central African States (http://www.grc-ceeac.org/fr/grccca);
ECOWAS - the Economic Community of West African States (http://www.ecowas.int);
IGAD - the Intergovernmental Authority on Development for Eastern Africa (http://www.igad.int);
SADC - the Southern African Development Community (http://www.sadc.int)
Relation to the ACP-EU NDRR Program
The operations of Result Area 2 were financed by an additional contribution of €20 million made in 2014 to the single-donor Trust Fund of the ACP-EU NDRR Program. This supplemental contribution for Result Area 2 thus falls administratively under the ACP-EU NDRR Program, but the activities implemented under Result Area 2 contributed to the ACP-EU Program “Building Disaster Resilience to Natural Hazards in Sub-Saharan African Regions, Countries, and Communities.”
Important Events
The ECCAS Hydromet Forum took place on 14-16 November 2018. More information on the event can be found here. The Proceedings of the Forum are available in English and French.
The ECOWAS Hydromet Forum took place on 12-15 September 2018. More information on the event can be found here.
The ECCAS 8th Central Africa Platform and 4th Central Africa Ministerial Conference on DRR took place in October 2019. More information can be found here.
An ECCAS Regional Capacity Building workshop was held in January 2020. Watch the video of the event here (in French).
Gender Strategies and Action Plans for Disaster Risk Reduction
Significant progress was made in integrating gender considerations to the Result Area 2 Program. Gender mainstreaming in DRR and DRM were prioritized as an essential aspect of building resilience to natural hazards that is inclusive of all segments of society, given the different vulnerabilities of women and men. In this light, ECCAS, ECOWAS, SADC and IGAD have finalized regional gender strategies and action plans, which were presented to respective member states. The objective of this activity was to develop a realistically ambitious and practical 10-year gender strategy and action plan for mainstreaming gender considerations into DRM policies, plans of actions and programs.
Download the ECCAS gender strategy and action plan and in French.
Download the ECOWAS gender strategy and action plan and in French.
Download the SADC gender strategy and action plan.
Download the IGAD gender strategy and action plan and in French..
Activity Reports
The Result Area 2 Activity Reports can be found hereafter: 2019-2020; 2018-2019 ; 2017-2018 ; 2016-2017 ; and 2014-2016.
Publications
ECCAS - a report on “Knowledge and technical and institutional capacities in the field of Disaster Risk Management in Central Africa” was published in January 2021.
A series of reports have been published highlighting the state of play of hydromet services, flood and drought management in Central Africa.
ECCAS Risk Atlas (Atlas des risques de la CEEAC in FR) : a regional overview of hazards, vulnerabilities and risks was finalized. A data integration report has also been developed, accessible here.
Several documents were published that provide a state of play and recommendations on the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries systems in the face of natural disasters in ECCAS member states, accessible here.
A summary report of the accomplishments of the R2 program was published in November 2021 in English, in French, and in Portuguese.
Download the Proceedings of the second ECCAS Hydromet Forum in English and in French.