20 November 2015: The first ‘Understanding Risk and Finance Conference for Africa’ provided a forum for African decision makers to discuss strategies and approaches to mitigate the socioeconomic, fiscal, and financial impacts of disasters, including those of climate change.

Hosted by the African Union (AU) Commission with the support of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), the World Bank and other partners, the Conference focused on two main themes: understanding risk, including risk modelling tools and applications and community-based approaches for identifying risk; and disaster risk financing and insurance.

The links between climate change and disaster risk were discussed during several plenary sessions, including: a high-level dialogue on financial resilience, which discussed financial resilience against shocks including through the impact of climate change on the poor; and plenary sessions on new approaches to managing risks from natural hazards and climate change, and risk pooling as a means to provide climate-risk insurance.

Furthermore, the Conference included a series of training and capacity-building workshops, several of which focused on climate-related issues, such as: mapping climate change vulnerability hotspots; using open data to reduce climate vulnerability; strengthening resilience to climate-induced natural hazards through the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and innovative approaches to resilience building.

The meeting was organized as part of the programme Building Disaster Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa, an initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States funded by the EU, and implemented by the AU Commission (AUC), UNISDR, the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. The Conference was held from 16-20 November 2015, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. [UNISDR Press Release] [Understanding Risk and Finance Conference Website]