12 February 2015: The Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States has published a study that provides a comprehensive view of the risks faced across its member countries and efforts to reduce them. The ‘ACP Compendium of Risk Knowledge,’ reveals that disaster risk in ACP countries is higher than in other regions, with 12 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa and one from the Caribbean among the 20 most-at-risk in the world.

The report also explains that in the long term, ACP countries will lose, on average, US%6.9 billion per year from disasters, representing 2.3% of their total GDP.

ACP Secretary General Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni said that while ACP countries have been successful in managing past disasters, they must begin to proactively reduce the underlying drivers of these risks, in order minimize human and economic losses. The report highlights innovative actions taken by ACP countries and communities to reduce risks, and the benefits of investing in risk reduction, such as by rebuilding better homes, rather than in disaster recovery only.

The report is expected to inform: the next disaster risk reduction (DRR) framework, which will be adopted in March at the 3rd UN World Conference on DRR, in Japan; the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be adopted at in September 2015 in New York; and the new climate change agreement to be adopted in Paris, France.

ACP, an organization created in 1975, is composed of 79 countries, including 48 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, 16 from the Caribbean and 15 from the Pacific. [ACP Press Release] [Statement of ACP Secretary General]