Data-driven Decision Making for Risk-informed Development and Financing

Risk data and information are crucial for a better understanding of the impacts of disasters. While data on hazards is available, it is more difficult to find reliable, collated data on disaster impacts at population and community-level, and the specific data available is often too complex for simple and rapid policy analysis. In particular, there is a lack of detailed data on which groups of people are most at risk from disasters and disproportionately affected by their impacts. Furthermore, there is little detailed data on how disasters affect countries’ productive capacities and how their long-term impacts on sustainable development can be assessed. 

Significant and specific gaps in long-standing disaster data sets negatively impact our ability to make risk-informed decisions about risk patterns and trends. Therefore, these data gaps affect our capacity to design the most cost-efficient and effective disaster risk reduction strategies and our ability to create proactive strategies against the economic and social impacts of disasters. 

This working session will provide an opportunity to share experience on improving the availability and quality of data that contributes to disaster knowledge and the identification of investments options for risk reduction. It will identify areas where data is lacking and discuss how these gaps impact risk assessment, policy making and the implementation of risk-informed development strategies. The session will also facilitate a knowledge exchange on innovative methods, best practices, tools, and technologies that can help bridge data gaps.