NL MoFA move to invest more in waterrelated DRR

The department of Humanitarian Relief of the Foreign Affairs Ministry recently formulated a concrete ambition in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction: in accordance with international agreements, 10% of the humanitarian relief assistance should be invested in DRR (see doc, in Dutch). The rationale is to invest beforehand in the reduction of risks, instead of only responding to a crisis. This is an interesting, and fruitful, development.

I was happy to be invited by the ministry for a meeting yesterday to informally discuss and brainstorm about the approach and options to invest disaster risk reduction activities in water management. I could not resist to translate this into possible activities in the field of flood risk management in deltas ;p. Participants liked the ideas and to name a specific outcome, it was recommended to develop 10 long term Delta Visions for at least 10 world deltas, to advise on integrated holistic approaches and flood risk management activities, supported by Dutch know-how and expertise. Also we discussed about options for urbanized delta areas, for example in the field of water and sanitation.

Participants included representatives from DME (the ‘water’ department), DSH (stability and humanitarian relief), the Red Cross and the Red Cross Climate Center, Deltares, and the Delta Commissioner’s staff and we are likely to get together again the coming months.