The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery

Abstract

GFDRR was established in September 2006 as a global partnership of the World Bank, UN agencies and bilateral donors, located in World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC. Its missions are (a) to mainstream disaster reduction and climate change adaptation (CCA) in country development strategies, and (b) to foster and strengthen global and regional cooperation among various stakeholders under the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) system. GFDRR supports the implementation of the UN 2005-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA). This international agreement in relation to disaster risk reduction (DRR) arose from a 168-nation UN conference held in Kyoto, Japan, in 2005. The key player for coordinating the implementation of HFA is the UNISDR bureau with headquarters in Geneva and eight regional offices worldwide. Another UN agency with operational responsibility for UN disaster related work is the UNDP-BCPR. These two UN agencies and GFDRR have complementary goals, creating potential for collaboration among the three organizations, but also calling for care in monitoring the risk of overlapping work among them and other DRR actors. UNISDR was a founding partner of GFDRR and UNDP-BCPR became a permanent observer to GFDRR in 2008.