Disaster Risk Management and institutional response to the Covid-19 Crisis

Thursday, June 4th - 11:00 a.m. (Panama time)
Spanish-English interpretation available 

National risk and emergency management systems in the Americas and Caribbean are engaging in different ways and adopting different commitments in the governance of the current COVID 19 crisis. This approach has been neither planned nor foreseen and has been uneven in many ways: from countries where the Systems have played an important role, to countries where they have had virtually no intervention.  The emergency or disaster laws of many countries have been the foundation for actions taken during and after the emergency.

By using disaster risk management tools (theoretical, conceptual and practical), the intention is to encourage debate and analysis of the role and scope of action of national risk and emergency management systems in crises similar to that of COVID-19, and to explore why it seems that national systems have not found their place in this crisis. 

These events generate, in first place, health crises and, later, as in a cascade, economic and social crises; but they also generate other types of crises that could be triggered by disasters related to hydrometeorological and geological events with the COVID-19 still present. The economic, social or political effects of the COVID-19 crisis in medium or long term are still difficult to predict, but from now on it can be clearly seen that social groups that were already vulnerable before the appearance of SARS-Cov-2 will be the most affected, and that this accumulation of vulnerability will play against them in future disasters. With its devastating and cascading effects, COVID-19 demonstrates the interconnected nature of risk today, highlighting the urgent need for a coordinated global effort to accelerate risk reduction activities.

To register: https://undrr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eEZK84aITomrZl-J0iwGbg