28 May 2019: The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) have released a publication warning that many sustainable development actions, including the SDGs, do not account for multiple, complex threats and dynamic trends, and are therefore not resilient. The report calls for risk-informed development to ensure more resilient sustainable development.

According to the authors, risk-informed development is the “construction and delivery of a development pathway that incrementally insulates progress” from shocks, such as political or community conflict, droughts or pandemics. Shocks are a “complex mix of different hazards and risks” that are frequently driven by more than one factor. For example, the coming together of environmental crime and illicit finance in many countries, or the lack of government control in Somalia combined with the rise of piracy, illustrate how shocks are “often a complex mix of different hazards and risks.” Placing risk at the center of development is critical in ensuring development progress that is informed by risk and is shock-proof, the report asserts.

The report titled, ‘Risk-informed development: From crisis to resilience,’ finds that development planning and programming “still do not adequately consider or act upon” risks. To move towards risk-informed, sustainable development, the report recommends strengthening capacity and expertise in risk-informed decision-making with both governments and the international development community, deepening understanding of the risk tolerances and other factors that shape development objectives, and building capacities to understand the limitations of methods and tools to assess complex threats and risks. The report further recommends strengthening data collection to improve the evidence base, strengthening monitoring and evaluation and communication systems, integrating considerations of multiple risks into long-term development processes, and encouraging new financing mechanisms for risk-informed development to reduce vulnerability, exposure and risk, and help countries cope and recover when crises occur.

The report calls for moving from single-hazard risk analysis to explicit acknowledgement of the interactions between threats, including climate change and natural hazards, economic and financial instability, and geopolitical volatility. The report recommends, inter alia:

• Systematically assessing risks and threats, risk perceptions, tolerances, opportunities, options and uncertainties to ensure that development is sustainable and resilient;
• Identifying responsible actors to tackle risk management, with what resources, by when and how those actions will be monitored;
• Analyzing trade-offs among development policies and investment options, such as environmental and social impacts and cultural, ethical and feasibility options; and
• Providing policymakers with an evidence base on the role of unsustainable development in creating risk.

The report concludes that risk-informed development allows for “development to become a vehicle to reduce risk, avoid creating risks and build resilience.” It emphasizes that sustainable development initiatives that are not risk informed will fail, calling for simultaneous action to address risk, resilience and sustainability. [Risk-informed development: From crisis to resilience] [UNDP Blog Post]