This toolkit offers a step-by-step guide for integrating Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation into the coastal and marine ecosystem management that will be quite useful for the field practitioners of coastal areas in the  sub-region. This publication builds on UNDP’s new Biodiversity and Ecosystems Global Framework, titled The Future We Want: Biodiversity and Ecosystems – Driving Sustainable Development that calls for a shift in focus towards the positive opportunities provided by biodiversity and natural ecosystems, in terms of harnessing their potential for sustainable development.

This publication is an outcome of a South Asian Regional Consultation of Experts held in New Delhi in March 2012 organized jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India, and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Asia and the Pacific Secretariat.

This publication serves as source material for taking an integrated approach to ecosystem management for effective risk reduction. Equally we hope that it will inform the ongoing consultations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda and Disaster Risk Reduction frameworks. We believe this is an important step towards building resilience of nations and communities in the South Asian sub-continent to shocks and natural disasters.