Following the success of the first Arab-Japan Political Dialogue in September 2017, the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Government of Japan, in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), launched a series of Policy Roundtables in September 2019 aiming at establishing a policy dialogue platform to discuss common development priorities and concerns, and explore policies and solutions to support the Arab region. To date, the tripartite partnership has hosted seven Policy Roundtables whose topics included: education and human development; socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis; digital transformation; sustainable reconstruction and infrastructure towards SDGs; water scarcity; and peacebuilding. The series has provided an effective platform to enhance constructive cooperation between Japan and the Arab League member states, by engaging UNDP as a co-host, to address multi-layered challenges in the region, particularly at the time of compounded challenges in evolving environment.

The 8th LAS-Japan-UNDP Policy Roundtable will be held on 28th of July and will focus on disaster risk reduction (DRR) with special focus on climate induced disasters and COP27. Climate change is the world’s largest challenge which threatens to exacerbate disaster risks with implications to peace and security. At the global level, disaster-hit countries reported direct economic losses valued at US$2.9 Trillion during the period 1998-2017 with climate-related disasters caused US$2.2 Trillion or 77 percent of the total. Reported losses from extreme weather events rose by 151% over 20-year periods with flood affected 2 billion people while drought affected 1.5 billion people. The report indicated that “climate-related and geophysical disasters killed 1.3 million people and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency assistance.” Storms, including tropical cyclones and hurricanes killed 233,000 people over the past 20-year period.

Climate change and disasters have been a great ‘threat multiplier’ over many years, exacerbating food insecurity, decimating water reserves, expanding drylands and creating underlying levels of social vulnerability. In particular, the Arab region as one of the most water insecure and food import dependent regions in the world is considered extremely vulnerable to climate change and associated disaster risks. More than 40 percent of the Arab region’s population is exposed to drought and other climate-induced disasters, with climate change exacerbating resource insecurity, social vulnerability, poverty, displacement, and conflict.

The Policy Roundtable will bring together policy makers, development experts, and other stakeholders from the LAS, its member states, Arab agencies, Japan, UN and other international partners to explore the emerging disaster risks from climate change to the region and identify means and best practices for building resilience to climate disasters, including integration of climate change adaptation (CCA) and DRR actions into crisis response and recovery processes. The roundtable will help identify ways to take the integrated approaches of CCA and DRR to manage the growing risks from climate disasters with clear co-benefits to SDG implementation including poverty reduction, food security, water access, displacement, migration, inequality, and human security.

The 8th Policy Roundtable will contribute to implementation of the Arab Strategy for DRR 2030, and be convened with support from the UNDP-UNDRR joint regional workplan 2022-2023 under the Statement of Intent.

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