SIDS4: Ensuring a Multi-hazard approach in the implementation of the Early Warning for All Initiative (EW4ALL)

The fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) will be held from 27 to 30 May 2024, at the American University of Antigua, St John’s, Antigua & Barbuda. The theme of the conference will be “Charting the course toward resilient prosperity", as the aim will be to assess the ability of SIDS to achieve sustainable development, including the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals. It will result in an intergovernmentally agreed, focused, forward-looking, and action-oriented political outcome document.

The conference will feature several parallel sessions which will take the form of plenaries to facilitate discourse across various thematic areas of sustainable development. The UNDRR has coordinated a parallel session under the theme “Ensuring a Multi-hazard approach in the implementation of the Early Warning for All Initiative (EW4ALL)”. This session has been developed to align with the thematic area of the conference, Levering Data and Digital Technologies and Building effective Institutions for a Resilient Future in SIDS. The conceptual basis of the session is that resilient prosperity relies on bolstering disaster preparedness, especially through multi-hazard early warning systems and anticipatory action capacity. The event will explore strategies for improved MHEWS considering the interconnected nature of risks. The session is scheduled to feature the insights of national, regional, and international partners. 

Background

The UN Secretary-General launched the Early Warning for All Initiative (EW4All) in 2022, aiming to boost political and financial support to ensure that everyone on Earth is protected by early warning systems by 2027. The side event will promote a comprehensive and multi-hazard approach to early warnings, aligning with the 2030 Global Agenda. This approach takes into consideration the systemic nature of risk and the potential cascading and compounding effects of different clusters of hazards, including hydro-meteorological, geological, environmental, biological, and technological, among others. The session will include gender-balanced representatives from SIDS in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific with direct experience in Multi-hazard EWS and community disaster resilience efforts. This contribution aims to complete the end-to-end, people- and nature-centered disaster resilience cycle, shifting the focus from managing disasters to managing risk. Additionally, it will present the progress of countries in developing Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems' gap analysis and implementation plans. The event will contribute to the outcome document of the conference by discussing the necessary elements for a paradigm shift towards Resilient Prosperity that includes strengthening disaster risk reduction and preparedness, climate change adaptation, and MHEWS.