The Risk Reduction Index (RRI) in West Africa and the FOREWARN Initiative
“Thanks to DARA, FOREWARN initiative now has the means to prevent, prepare and respond to the kinds of crises ECOWAS and its Member States will have to deal with in the future”. Randolph Kent, Head of the Humanitarian Futures Programme, King’s College, London
The second phase of the Risk Reduction Index in the West Africa region is currently underway in collaboration with the Humanitarian Futures Programme (HFP) and the African Leadership Centre (ALC), under the auspices of the FOREWARN Initiative -Facilitating Enhanced Organisational Responsiveness for Effective West African Risk
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The FOREWARN Initiative is built on HFP’s previous engagement with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and is implemented in close collaboration with this regional institution. The purpose of the initiative is to generate knowledge in the region that will help ECOWAS, as well as selected Member States (including national governments and local administrations) to address the underlying risk factors (Hyogo Framework for Action, Priority for Action 4) and to contribute to the enhancement of effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) in the West African region.
In line with the current DRR efforts in West Africa, the FOREWARN initiative will support ECOWAS disaster risk reduction strategy as outlined in the ‘Programme of Action for the Implementation of the ECOWAS Policy for DRR 2010‐2014’. In order to achieve this, there is a need to identify existing capacities that can operationalise strategies and plans, as well as the conditions in place that either contribute to or impede DRR and CCA planning and implementation. As such, the FOREWARN initiative will focus on both the capacities and conditions necessary to ensure DRR and CCA activities can be effectively implemented at regional, national and sub‐national levels. This initiative will also strengthen risk identification and vulnerability analysis by increasing abilities to anticipate new forms of hazards and understand their complex inter‐relationships and dynamics. More about the disaster risk in West Africa.
West Africa: The challenge of integrating DRR and CCA into development and poverty reduction strategies.
The implementation of the RRI in West Africa will facilitate an analysis of the capacities, conditions and underlying risk drivers that affect vulnerable communities by utilising a methodology that emphasises community engagement and that seeks to strengthen the community’s influence on policy-making processes. The RRI will first examine three countries in the region: Cape Verde, Ghana and Senegal, with funding from Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). DARA plans on the continued support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID in its Spanish acronym) in this next phase of the RRI. This will allow DARA to expand the analysis of four additional countries in the region. Those under consideration are Gambia, Guinea, and Niger.
