Integrated Science for Sendai Framework Implementation

This Issue Brief was prepared for the UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, to be held the 27-29 January 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland. It was prepared by Mark Pelling, Amy Donovan and Emma Visman of the IRDR International Centre of Excellence – Risk Information to Action, hosted by King’s College London.

Implementation of the Sendai Framework will benefit from a broad but clear understanding of the range of knowledge services science can provide. The science and technology communities are diverse and dynamic. The need for some knowledge services is well established in policy and practice – for example monitoring and evaluation and technical risk assessments, though gaps in application remain; other services, such as decision analysis or risk root cause analysis are only beginning to be developed and applied. Despite our growing understanding of risk, losses increase. This supports ongoing calls for science to be evaluated, and re-organised to enter a new level of conversation with policy, practice and those at risk. Policy and practice actors also have to reflect on their relationship with science if the breadth of science-action relationships, from service to critical friend and catalyst, are to be valued and fostered. This is Sendai’s call to science and science users. Read the full Issue Brief here.