August 2016: In his report on the humanitarian response to disasters occurring in 2015, the UN Secretary-General calls for increased international cooperation on monitoring, early response, and financing. The report, titled ‘International cooperation on humanitarian assistance in the field of natural disasters, from relief to development,’ highlights increased levels of drought and heat waves in what turned out to be the hottest year on record globally.

The report cites figures estimating more than 19 million people were newly displaced by disasters in 2015, more than twice as many as were displaced by conflict and violence. This was somewhat lower than recent yearly averages, but still reflects a general upward trend since the 1970s.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported 2015 as the hottest year on record, and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) said drought and heat wave conditions had contributed to the loss of over 7,300 lives.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported 2015 as the hottest year on record, and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) said drought and heat wave conditions had contributed to the loss of over 7,300 lives. There were 32 major droughts in 2015, more than twice the annual average for the past ten years. The worst disasters of the year with the two earthquakes in Nepal in April and May 2015, which cost an estimated US$7 billion worth of damage and losses.

Despite these incidents, a lower number of disaster-related deaths occurred in 2015 than in previous years. The report ascribes the lower number of deaths to improvements in disaster risk reduction (DRR), particularly in early warning and evacuations.

Noting the increased intensity and scale of disasters, however, the report calls for the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to increase its annual funding target to US$1 billion. In 2015, the Fund had dipped into its reserves of US$67 million to supplement donor contributions of US$403 million for various disasters.

The report also notes that weather-related phenomena such as El Niño are creating slow-onset crises that will require different kinds of tools and responses than rapid-onset crises. It highlights UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s appointment, on 20 May 2016, of two UN Special Envoys on El Niño and Climate, Mary Robinson (Ireland) and Macharia Kamau (Kenya), to lead advocacy and resource mobilization efforts, building on the international policy agendas of 2015 – the Sendai Framework for DRR, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report highlights several initiatives that came out of the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016. These include the Regional Organizations Humanitarian Action Network, to share good practices in DRR, and a global risk platform, to map existing approaches to assessment, monitoring and management of risk. The platform is expected to feed into the work of the Global Platform for DRR. Following up on the Nansen Initiative, which tracks disaster-induced cross-border displacement, the Platform on Disaster Displacement also was launched in May 2016 to address knowledge gaps in this area.

Finally, the report makes several recommendations, including for Member States and others to: ensure a comprehensive approach to El Niño and La Niña events, including better forecasting, early warning and preparedness; and strengthen national and local leadership, preparedness and response capacities. It calls for the UN to increase its support for Member States to implement the Sendai Framework and thus contribute to a risk-informed and integrated approach to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. [Publication: International cooperation on humanitarian assistance in the field of natural disasters, from relief to development: Report of the Secretary-General (A/71/329)]