INTERNATIONAL RECOVERY PLATFORM

6.

International Recovery Platform

ADRC is among the founding members of the International Recovery Platform (IRP), and continues tosupport IRP’s work, including co-hosting the IRP Secretariat, with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction and the Hyogo Prefectural Government.

6.1

International Recovery Forum 2023

IRP held the annual International Recovery Forum on 27 January 2023 in a hybrid format on the theme,“Building Back Better and Long-Term Recovery Outcomes: Aspirations for a Resilient, Sustainable Future”.
The 2023 IRP Forum welcomed 443 participants hailing from more than 70 countries, both onsite at the Kobe
International Conference Center and online.
At the midpoint of the implementation of the Sendai Framework, countries continue to experience significant
challenges with building back better, in practice, and achieving improved recovery outcomes. Disasterrecovery has been the least researched area in disaster risk reduction, with few long-term longitudinalstudies. The factors that drive recovery outcomes in the medium to long-term are not as well-understood as
those which drive short term results from recovery projects and programs Yet, those are the decisive factorsthat determine whether communities are able to build back more resilient, equitable, and prosperous
societies in the decades and generations following a disaster. Recovery is a long, complex, and expensive
process involving many stakeholders that can take decades, and long-term considerations can be neglected.
Section 6The International Recovery Forum 2023 featured 17 speakers representing 10 countries. Speakers in theopening session included Mr Ronald JACKSON, Chair of the IRP Steering Committee (UNDP), Mr SAITO

Motohiko,

GovernorPrefecture,Mr

DeputyofHyogo

UEMURA

Noboru,Director

Management,for

DisasterCabinet

Office,Government of Japan, and Ms Mami
MIZUTORI, Special Representative ofthe United Nations Secretary-General(SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction,and Head of the United Nations Officefor Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
The keynote session included two

Figure 6.1 Prof TAKEMURA Masayuki of Nagoya University

keynote speakers, Mr TAKEMURA
Masayuki, Professor in the Disaster Mitigation Research Center, Nagoya University, and Mr Emil K. SADAIN,Senior Undersecretary, Department of Public Works and Highways, Government of the Philippines.
The first panel session, “Learning from Experience: Long-Run Recovery from Large-Scale Disasters” featured
recovery experiences from countries impacted by large-scale disasters over the longer-term. The discussions
addressed evidence on effective long term-recovery focusing on challenges, barriers, and gaps as well as
enablers and lessons learned from their successes and failures, and how these can inform recovery
programs moving forward. Speakers included: Ms Laurie JOHNSON, Principal at Laurie Johnson Consulting
and Research and Visiting Scientist at University of California, Berkeley; Ms Lianne DALZIEL, Former Mayor57

INTERNATIONAL RECOVERY PLATFORMof Christchurch, New Zealand; Mr Nadeem AHMED, Former Deputy Chairman of the Earthquake
Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) and Former Chairman of the National DisasterManagement Authority (NDMA) of the Government of Pakistan; and Mr Emil K SADAIN, Senior
Undersecretary, Department of Public Works and Highways, Government of the Philippines. The panel wasmoderated by Mr Ronald JACKSON, Chair of the IRP Steering Committee, and featured Ms Riyanti
DJALANTE, Assistant Director and Head of the Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Divisionof the ASEAN Secretariat, as a discussant in the panel discussion.

Section 6Figure 6.2 Panel Discussion 1 of the International Recovery Forum 2023

The second panel session, “Good Practices and Innovations to Ensure Better Long-term Recovery
Outcomes” presented several domains of recovery practice, through the perspective of planning for longer
term recovery, resilience, and sustainability goals and an analysis of how stakeholders recover. Thediscussion examined what works for enabling long-term recovery, including financing better recovery
outcomes, inclusion and leaving no one behind, institutional considerations and policies, climate change, andother evolving and emerging risks. Panel 2 speakers included Mr Ryan VIADO, Acting Chief, Post-Disaster
Evaluation Management Division, Office of Civil Defense (OCD), Government of the Philippines; Mr Kunal
SATYARTHI, Joint Secretary, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India; H.E.
Mr Diego Alejandro DALTON Rosales, Ambassador of El Salvador to Japan; Mr Luis Alonso AMAYA,General Director, General Directorate of Civil Protection, Government of El Salvador; and Ms Farah KABIR,Country Director, ActionAid Bangladesh. The panel was moderated by Mr Abhilash PANDA, Officer-in-Charge, Intergovernmental Processes, Interagency Cooperation and Partnerships Branch, UNDRR. Ms
Laurie JOHNSON from Panel 1 served as a discussant in the panel discussion.
Finally, the speakers at the closing session were Mr Abhilash PANDA and Mr MURAKAMI Takeo, Director of
the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan and Co-Chair of the IRP Steering Committee.
6.2

The Fifth Edition of the World Reconstruction Conference (WRC5)

The fifth edition of the World Reconstruction Conference (WRC5) was organized in a hybrid modality, in Bali,Indonesia on May 23–24 2022, during the preparatory days of the 7th Global Platform for Disaster RiskReduction. The WRC5 was co-organized by UNDP, GFDRR/World Bank, and UNDRR, which was the firsttime under the umbrella of their partnership in the International Recovery Platform. Held under the conference58

INTERNATIONAL RECOVERY PLATFORM

theme, “Reconstructing for a sustainable future: Building resilience through recovery in a COVID-19
Transformed World”, the WRC5 convened 1,600 onsite participants, with more than 3,000 registered online
participants in the hybrid event. The WRC5 focused on addressing the unprecedented socio-economic
recovery needs as a pathway to rebuild a resilient and sustainable society in the post COVID-19 world. The
conference was organized with three sub-themes: 1) Social, infrastructural and economic recovery fromdisasters as an opportunity to reset the development pathway towards a greener and resilient future; 2)Addressing the social and economic effects and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on “hard-won”
development gains; and 3) Rethinking recovery governance models: Planning, Financing and Managing
recovery from complex and interconnected disaster-conflict events in the post COVID-19 world.

Section 6

Figure 6.3 IRP SC Chair and members at the 5th World Reconstruction Conference (WRC5) in Bali, Indonesia

The IRP Secretariat supported the overall organization and implementation of the conference, including 15
sessions co-organized with the IRP Steering Committee members and WRC5 co-organizers. The IRP
Secretariat hosted two technical sessions, “Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning”, and “Responding to Recovery
Challenges in the Urban Environment”. The IRP Secretariat hosts the on-demand videos of the World
Reconstruction Conference on the IRP’s YouTube channel. The IRP Secretariat also contributed to theproduction of the final outcome documents, the Joint Communique on Reconstructing for a Resilient Future,and the Fifth World Reconstruction Conference Knowledge Report. Both of the outcome documents areavailable on the IRP website.

59

INTERNATIONAL RECOVERY PLATFORM

6.3

Contributions to the Mid-Term Review of the Sendai Framework

The International Recovery Platform organized a series of activities that contribute to the Midterm Review
process of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. IRP had organized the IRP Forum 2022 tofocus on the key recovery-related questions of the Midterm Review, and to feature national government
presentations on their accomplishments and challenges with building back better in post-disaster recovery.
IRP later developed a knowledge report for the conference as contributions to the Midterm Review. IRP
additionally convened its Steering Committee members for a video project to address the key questions of theMidterm Review for the build back better component of Priority 4 from the perspectives of many of the key
agencies working at the international and national levels on supporting disaster recovery. Finally, IRP
conducted a systematic desk review of the disaster recovery literature. It reviewed both peer-reviewed
literature and gray literature from Preventionweb and Scopus, covering nearly 1200 publications that had
been published since the adoption of the Sendai Framework. The systematic desk review integrated theresults of the video project, and the IRP Forum knowledge report, and was accepted as IRP’s official
contribution to the Midterm Review process. The report of the Main Findings and Recommendations of theMidterm Review of the Sendai Framework was published in January 2023, and the full report was publishedshortly thereafter.

6.4

7th National Convention for the Promotion of Disaster Reduction

IRP participated in the 7th National Convention for the Promotion of Disaster Reduction (BOSAI KOKUTAI
Section 62022). The Bosai Kokutai 2022 was held in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, and was organized by the Executive
Committee for the National Conference on Disaster Prevention 2022, and led by the Cabinet Office of Japanin cooperation with Hyogo Prefecture, Kobe City, and Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial Human andDisaster Prevention Future Center. This event has been held since 2016 and is now in its seventh year. The
purpose of this event is to raise awareness of disaster prevention among the people, particularly at theindividual and community levels, and to share knowledge and experiences about disasters in order toenhance disaster preparedness. IRP held an exhibition booth at the conference to introduce its activities tothe international community to promote building back better through the introduction of its recovery guidancenotes, leaflets outlining its activities, the IRP Herald and knowledge products related to COVID-19, and its
contributions to the global agenda on disaster recovery through the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on
Disaster Risk Reduction, the 6th Session of the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction, and by coorganizing the World Reconstruction Conference 5.

60