UNDRR welcomes milestone commitments to disaster risk reduction at FFD4
At the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) welcomed a landmark step forward for disaster resilience financing.
For the first time, the outcome document includes a dedicated paragraph (para 17) on disaster risk reduction (DRR), committing to scale up investment in DRR and promote risk-informed infrastructure development aligned with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Compromiso de Sevilla further includes over 20 technical references to disaster and climate risk financing across its sections—a reflection of growing recognition of the financial imperative to reduce risk.
“This commitment reflects the growing consensus on the need for greater and smarter financing to achieve the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction,” said Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR.
“Let us be clear: financing disaster risk reduction is not a cost—it is an investment. Every dollar invested in resilience saves multiple in avoided losses, reduced humanitarian needs, expedited recovery time, and protected livelihoods.”
UNDRR also used the platform to advance the Risk to Resilience Finance Initiative, a new programme designed to help vulnerable countries build national financial systems for DRR and scale up investment in disaster and climate resilience. The initiative, endorsed by Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Poland, UK, as well as UNCDF, and UNU-EHS, is now part of the Sevilla Platform for Action.
The initiative aims to support vulnerable countries over five years—particularly LDCs and SIDS— in developing national financing systems adapted to their context that ensure funding for DRR measures at all levels, promote risk-informed investment planning across sectors, and establish financial mechanisms to absorb disaster shocks and enable faster recovery.
In a side event co-hosted by UNDRR, Japan, Poland, Portugal, UK and UNCDF, government officials, financial institutions, and development partners discussed how to integrate disaster and climate risk into national budgeting and investment planning, for instance through debt swaps, integration of resilience criteria in infrastructure development, and the issuance of resilience bonds.
With DRR now firmly embedded in the Financing for Development agenda, UNDRR reiterated its commitment to working with all partners to accelerate the shift from risk to resilience, ensuring no development gain is lost to disaster.
Catalyzing investment in resilience
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction identifies investing in disaster risk reduction as one of its four priority actions. In response, UNDRR has intensified its work in this area. Our goal is to support countries in accessing more financing for prevention, while at the same time, helping the public and private sectors to de-risk investments and reorient financial flows for increased resilience.
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