Mission
The Federal Foreign Office is responsible for German foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union.
Each year, the Federal Foreign Office spends up to 10% of its humanitarian aid budget on measures to improve disaster risk reduction worldwide.
The number and intensity of natural disasters have risen significantly over the past years, partly due to the impact of climate change. In many instances countries, especially developing countries, are not taken by surprise by such disasters, but they are nonetheless often inadequately prepared. The question of what we can do in advance to prevent casualties and damage is therefore becoming ever more urgent.
In this context, the German Government has pledged to help meet the objectives of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 (HFA) by supporting states with structural weaknesses to develop and expand their capacity for self-help in the field of disaster risk reduction.
As well as strengthening political processes, we support the implementation of individual projects. For assistance guidelines please consult our website at www.diplo.de/humanitaerehilfe.
Our project work is undertaken in partnership with the United Nations, or more specifically the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), as well as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and non-governmental organizations. We are unable to implement projects in direct cooperation with governmental agencies.
We support projects abroad that are not financed as cross-sectoral projects within the framework of development cooperation.
Our focus is on early warning and pilot projects, for example on installing and using early-warning systems to protect people from approaching tropical storms, and on awareness-raising activities among local populations.
We are also keen to support the building of disaster reduction networks at both national and transboundary level. We are devoting particular attention to cooperation at regional level and the strengthening of regional organizations.
Our projects mainly target high-risk areas of poorer countries which are especially vulnerable to disasters and there are serious deficits in terms of both disaster reduction and disaster management. We have identified community-based disaster reduction in vulnerable coastal areas and earthquake zones, as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a particular priority. We want to highlight this approach. We believe it is important that local authorities and communities be involved in disaster reduction measures on an ongoing basis.
We fund primarily short-term and medium-term projects, which usually take no more than two years to complete.
www.diplo.de/humanitaerehilfe
No results found.
Voluntary Commitments
The Sendai Framework Voluntary Commitments (SFVC) online platform allows stakeholders to inform the public about their work on DRR. The SFVC online platform is a useful toolto know who is doing what and where for the implementation of the Sendai Framework, which could foster potential collaboration among stakeholders. All stakeholders (private sector, civil society organizations, academia, media, local governments, etc.) working on DRR can submit their commitments and report on their progress and deliverables.