Antalya (Turkey), Nov 12 (IANS) The United Nations on Thursday launched a new initiative at the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, aiming to secure access to more than $3 billion in risk financing to protect 75 million people and their livelihoods from potential climate shocks and natural hazards by 2030.
Bringing together six UN agencies, the UN Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) Platform aims to make disaster response funding more predictable, increase the availability of funding for early action during major crises, and maximise the impact of every dollar by combining available resources with private sector support.
The platform will enable agencies to share expertise, pool data, and coordinate joint solutions to expand the UN’s use of pre-arranged financing.
Combining robust data and predictive analysis with funds will help governments and agencies turn early warnings into anticipatory actions.
This will strengthen emergency responses before, during, and after disasters.
The platform and collaboration across agencies will also ensure funding is used more efficiently and strengthen the resilience of vulnerable communities to future shocks.
Collaboration with the insurance industry and financial markets will be key to reducing costs as financing scales up.
The platform will allow all agencies to fully engage while maintaining programmatic and operational independence.
Ahead of its public launch, the UN DRF Platform recently delivered its first results.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) were able to put in place insurance policies that provide a financial safety net for their anticipatory action programmes.
This was supported by specialist insurance teams from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and helps reach more people before disasters strike to protect their homes, food, or livelihoods.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) will bring its expertise in displacement risk analysis and anticipatory action to the platform, helping ensure that communities at risk of displacement are better protected before disasters strike.
Yet pre-arranged financing still accounts for less than two per cent of global humanitarian financing, which falls far short of the scale needed.
By working together, members of the UN DRF Platform can combine their expertise and resources to help close this gap.
The UN DRF Platform is a joint initiative among the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), IOM, OCHA, UNICEF, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and WFP.
–IANS
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