ODI Global Risks and Resilience

⬇️ Days after Jamaica's most powerful hurricane on record, and one week before #COP30, GRR's Emily Wilkinson and Avinash Persaud write on the urgent need to plug finance gaps that are leaving small island nations exposed to climate disasters and rising seas. Read in Climate Home News:

📢 I am happy to share that we have published 3 policy briefs, highlighting what we have learned from 5 years of SPARC Ideas about creating people-centred #EarlyWarningSystems, reducing #disaster #risk and taking #AnticipatoryAction to scale in #conflict & protracted #crises. ⚠️ Conflict shapes everything — from how shocks affect people, what actions are feasible and who will benefit from any action. Effective interventions must reflect this reality and consider how conflict, insecurity and state fragility shape vulnerability and the impact of shocks. 🏚️ In conflicts, humanitarian assistance and post-disaster recovery tend to be prioritised, but #DisasterRiskReduction efforts are both necessary and possible: #DRR is being done locally, often without external support, and usually without the DRR label. 👥 A people-centred #EWS must maximise the chances that people will receive, understand, interact with, trust and act on the information that they need. Space must be created for ideas to be exchanged and reflected on, so that people can make informed decisions. ⏳Anticipatory action is much harder where there is no pre-crisis normality. It cannot be planned in isolation & must be part of an overall disaster risk management strategy. 🌍 Progress is most likely where challenges and solutions are seen in social, not just technical, terms. For instance, the technical analysis of early warning data requires scientific expertise but the overall task of supporting an EWS is mainly a social task, requiring political, institutional, sectoral and knowledge management skills. 🔧 In conflict and recurring crisis, you cannot just replicate successful models from more stable places. Interventions need to be flexible, build on what already exists, embrace the informal, consider trade-offs, support people’s options and agency and work within the context. 📖 Read the briefs here: 🔗 Ten ways to create people-centred early warning system in conflicts and recurrent crises: https://lnkd.in/eSyKrZ5t 🔗 Ten ways to reduce disaster risk in conflicts and recurring crises: https://lnkd.in/evzQzi52 🔗 Twelve ways to take anticipatory action to scale in conflicts and recurring crises: https://lnkd.in/ej2FAuC7 A huge thank you to all those who reviewed and fed into these briefs, many of whom are below! Simon Levine ODI Global ODI Global Risks and Resilience Mauricio Vazquez Catalina Jaime Rodrigo (Rod) Mena Marcus Oxley Véronique Barbelet Leigh Mayhew Samuel Derbyshire Tahira Mohamed Shariff Becky Murphy Adessou Kossivi Niccolò Lombardi Mirianna Budimir Christopher Ball Matthew Tebbutt Adrian Cullis Laura Swift GNDR Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) Anticipation Hub Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action Emma Visman

As Hurricane Melissa, now a category five storm, nears landfall, we stand with the vulnerable island nations facing escalating climate impacts and urgently needing stronger global support. 🔗 To understand more about the scale of climate change-related loss and damage facing Small Island Developing States, explore our working paper by Emily Wilkinson, Vikrant Panwar, Ilan Noy and Jack Corbett here: https://lnkd.in/dSJW9u_z #HurricaneMelissa #ClimateAction #LossAndDamage

📢 Published this week, our expert Simon Levine was featured in The Independent highlighting the political complexities of rating food insecurity   While AI tools are increasingly being proposed to predict and monitor famine, Simon cautions that they cannot fully account for the nuanced realities on the ground: “A lot of data is out of date, inadequate or uncertain, which means that rating food insecurity becomes a consensus-based process between multiple experts.”    📖 Read the full article here; https://lnkd.in/dD7tMcpk   🌱 For more on Simon's and other researchers' work on building #Resilience and food security in protracted crises, browse the latest resources by research programme SPARC Ideas: https://lnkd.in/d3n4HPA7   Nick Ferris ODI Global #Famine #Aid

What have we learned from five years of SPARC Ideas research about anticipating disasters and building #Resilience in protracted crises?   ➡️ Three new policy briefs by GRR's Simon Levine and Emma Gogerty (née Lovell) draw out the specific policy implications from SPARC research. They find that:   ⛑️ In conflicts and recurring crises, humanitarian assistance and post-disaster recovery tend to be prioritised over #DisasterRiskReduction efforts. 🔎 ... Yet despite the challenges of working in difficult places, SPARC research has found that disaster risk reduction is already happening: it is being done locally, often without external support, and usually without the disaster risk reduction label.  📈 To support disaster risk reduction and anticipatory action in conflicts and recurring crises, interventions must: be flexible; support people’s options and agency, and go further than technical ‘solutions’ - to work with the context in which they are being implemented. ⚠️ Interventions must also start from the understanding that conflicts shape everything: how shocks affect people, what actions are feasible, and who will benefit from any action.   Read the briefs here: 1️⃣ Twelve ways to take #AnticipatoryAction to scale in conflicts and recurring crises: https://lnkd.in/eYHXFArn 2️⃣ Ten ways to create people-centred #EarlyWarningSystems in conflicts and recurrent crises: https://lnkd.in/erNffpHH 3️⃣ Ten ways to reduce disaster risk in conflicts and recurring crises: https://lnkd.in/ekQ5CUGQ ODI Global

🌍 How can we better navigate uncertainty in a world of interconnected shocks to global development? This week, our experts Dr Rebecca Nadin, Olena Borodyna and Elena Kiryakova, took part in the 2025 UK-China Development Forum, at the Royal Over-Seas League in London, co-hosted by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Development Research Center of the State Council. The discussion explored critical themes at the intersection of our Global Risks and Resilience programme’s work on China’s role in development cooperation, risk-informed energy transition, and financing resilience in complex and conflict settings. Key relevant themes that emerged:   1️⃣Reshaping multilateral cooperation: The conversation highlighted the urgent need for multilateral system reform and joint UK-China action on institutional effectiveness, particularly as emerging powers seek greater voice in global governance. This connects to our recent research on China’s reshaping of the global financial architecture. Read the report here➡️ https://lnkd.in/d3SEuF4s 2️⃣Financing inclusive energy transitions: Ensuring resilient supply chains while avoiding exclusion of the Global South requires innovative transition finance. Our analysis of China’s clean energy lending, investments and project activity in Africa reveals both opportunities and new dependencies➡️ https://lnkd.in/e3KinRHM 3️⃣ Closing the adaptation finance gap: Current flows meet less than 25% of global adaptation needs, with fragile and conflict-affected states receiving the least support. Bridging this gap demands rethinking of financial architecture, not simply expanding pledges. In these contexts, grant-based, conflict-sensitive finance that leverages co-benefits can deliver far greater impact➡️ https://lnkd.in/dSkQ2wcK  🔗 You can read more of the Global Risks and Resilience programme's work here: https://lnkd.in/eAyFcvCU ODI Global Ali Serim Susan E. Walton Wilton Park #Adaptation #ClimateFinance #ClimateResilience  #GlobalDevelopment #China

Small Island Developing States secured a landmark victory when the #ICJ affirmed states’ legal obligations to protect the climate system. At the same time, the window of opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5°C is closing, and countries that are "friends of SIDS" are not keeping up: most have submitted NDCs that are not aligned with 1.5°C, and many do not even have a commitment. Emily Wilkinson, Aditi Solanki and I wrote a new ODI Global Risks and Resilience briefing paper that assesses 10 friends of SIDS - Australia, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the UK, China and India - examining their NDCs and fossil fuel subsidies in light of the ICJ ruling. We offer practical recommendations for keeping the advisory opinion alive. *️⃣ #COP30 is the first chance to translate the content of the ICJ advisory opinion into concrete measures to advance climate diplomacy. *️⃣ Beyond COP30, climate litigation is already referencing the opinion to seek compensation for climate damages, to push governments to stick to their commitments, and to protect human rights. Many thanks to Climate Change Legal Initiative for thoughtful and thorough review, in particular Francesco Sindico, Dr. Kate McKenzie and Lennart Wegener, as well as my brilliant colleagues Courtney O. Lindsay (PhD, PMP) and Laetitia Pettinotti. https://lnkd.in/ecYSN9wE

Global Risks and Resilience's Amir Khouzam spoke on episode 4 of #DynamicDrylands, the podcast by SPARC Ideas, about one of the trickiest issues in climate action: how to build the #resilience of people living in places affected by conflict and protracted crises. 🎧 Listen to the episode 'Development on the margins' on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts: https://lnkd.in/enhtpZr3 🔗 Or read the transcript here: https://lnkd.in/eGUGwqXN

⚠️ For #DRRDay, read 5 of our most popular recent reports & blogs on #DisasterRiskReduction from the Global Risks and Resilience team:   1️⃣💡Ten Years of Sendai: our blog from earlier this year reviews what has changed - and what still needs to change - since the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction was signed in 2015 ➡️ https://lnkd.in/esRkpPhD 2️⃣💡Bearing The Burden: our landmark study was the first to calculate climate-attributable #LossAndDamage across many countries in the Sahel and Horn of Africa; produced by SPARC Ideas and featured in an Independent exclusive ➡️ https://lnkd.in/epv-kSsv 3️⃣💡 A Fair Share: our study showed the gap between the amount of resilience finance which Small Island Developing States receive compared to other countries➡️https://lnkd.in/gaigEaEk 4️⃣💡Small Change? Working with fragile and conflict-affected countries to build their climate resilience can also reduce the overall level of humanitarian needs, and build more prosperous, peaceful societies - but the conflict blind spot in climate finance is not getting smaller, as this blog shows ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eeUf6Stf 5️⃣ 💡Climate Adaptation: Earlier this year, we were delighted to interview Head of the Adaptation Fund Mikko Ollikainen about the Fund's work helping developing countries adapt to the harmful effects of climate change and to build their climate #Resilience. You can watch the full event here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dX-vwRFJ   Our team has 10+ years experience on disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation and loss and damage. To stay updated, follow this page or any of the researchers working in our team - including Dr Rebecca Nadin Emily Wilkinson Mauricio Vazquez Simon Levine Vikrant Panwar Emma Gogerty (née Lovell) Sarah O. Courtney O. Lindsay (PhD, PMP) Lena Nur Florence Pichon Yue Cao Manisha Kabra Gulati #ResiliencePays ODI Global

🎧SPARC's podcast mini-series, #DynamicDrylands, is LIVE. The drylands of Africa and the Middle East are often portrayed only through crisis headlines: hunger, conflict, poverty, and extremism. Yet these regions are also home to extraordinary innovation and potential. ⚠️ This podcast looks at how people in the drylands of Africa and the Middle East are adapting and surviving in the face of huge changes – from civil wars to climate shocks – often without any external support. With Bola Mosuro hosting, each episode explores: 1️⃣ What place do pastoralists have in a fast-changing Africa? - feat Ken Otieno from Reconcile, and Mark Kaigwa from Nendo 2️⃣ Aid (in)effectiveness: “What really happens after an NGO packs their bags and leaves?”  - feat. Dorice Agol from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Nancy Balfour from Centre for Humanitarian Change 3️⃣ Facing floods and surviving civil wars: adaptability and resilience in Sudan and South Sudan - feat Margie Buchanan-Smith and Pacificah Okemwa from Kenyatta University 4️⃣ Development on the margins: why should aid actors build resilience in fragile places? - feat. Amir Khouzam from ODI Global Risks and Resilience and Musaed Aklan from Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies 5️⃣ Farming after fighting: how smallholder farmers recover when the conflict ends - feat Steve Wiggins from ODI Global Find Dynamic Drylands on Acast, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. #DynamicDrylands #SPARCideas ODI Global International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Cowater International Mercy Corps