5th International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC 2014 Integrative Risk Management - The role of science, technology & practice 24-28 August 2014 in Davos, Switzerland

1. Daniel Kull
Humanitarian-Development Attaché
Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist
World Bank Group, Geneva

2. Background
• Understanding Risk (UR) – an open and global community
• 3,200 experts and practitioners in disaster risk assessment
• more than 125 countries
• government agencies, private sector, multilateral organizations,
NGOs, research institutions, academia and civil society
• GFDRR convenes UR every two years to showcase best practices and
the latest technical know-how in disaster risk assessment
• Previous global events: Washington DC (2010) and Cape Town (2012)
• Government–led national events in Brazil (2012) and Haiti (2014)

3. Understanding Risk Forum 2014
• Theme: Producing Actionable Information
• Convened by GFDRR in partnership with Willis, University College
London and the World Bank Group
• Financial support from the EU-ACP, ESRI, RMS and Google
• 840 participants from more than 60 countries, representing 285
institutions
• Many topics discussed, including:
• decision-making under uncertainty
• risk modeling in the financial sector
• earth observation systems
• risk communication
• community-based risk assessments
• assessing risk in a changing climate

4. Announcements / Launches
• Every World Bank IDA operation around the globe to be screened for
natural disaster and climate risk.
• Google and Airbus committed to provide the first truly global 3D Digital
Elevation Model of the Earth’s entire land surface.
• Publications launched:
• Understanding Risk: The Evolution of Disaster Risk Assessment
• Review of Open Source and Open Access Software Packages
Available to Quantify Risk from Natural Hazards
• Crowdsourced Geographic Information Use in Government
• Free government access to RMS(one), a modelling platform for
catastrophe risk.
• Africa requested a regional Understanding Risk and Finance Conference
to be held in Ethiopia in April/May 2015

5. Outcomes
• UR well appreciated as a space for developing partnerships and
knowledge exchange on risk assessment
• Opportunity for initiatives to meet and cross-fertilize: