CiR2P Option 18 | Support confidence-building measures

DISCUSSION:

Establishing confidence-building measures between states can help protect vulnerable human populations from climate-related harm. Measure can include emergency service-to-emergency service programs such as establishing regular joint training exercises, and or reciprocal information exchange programs between government agencies and ministers including the establishment of a hotline between political leaders for emergencies. The basic aim is to build trust between countries and a sense that they can rely on one another when disaster inevitably strikes.  

Countries regularly engage in bilateral emergency service and rapid response scenario training, sharing of capability (personnel and equipment), and response planning. For example, the US and Australia run annual joint firefighting training exercises and redistribute personnel and heavy equipment such as aircraft where it is most needed during fire season.

The US, the UK and EU could develop programs that facilitate cross-border emergency training and trust building exercises between fragile states as well as formal capability sharing agreements that can be operationalised when climate-related disasters are imminent or occurring.

Western powers could also facilitate deeper cross-border Disaster Risk Reduction integration between fragile states by supporting DRR technologies and activities such as hazard mapping, disaster prevention education, high-tech meteorological radar and early warning systems, enhanced community-level weather warning communications and evacuation drills, multi-purpose shelters, financial and technical assistance in emergency relief, and post-event psychological care.

To achieve enhanced confidence-building measures between fragile states, the US, UK and EU could work though their own government agencies such as UKAID and the UK MET Office; regional bodies such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), which has attempted to improve institutional mechanisms for different facets of DDR preparedness and response; or the UN Office of DRR, which is the UN’s focal point for disaster risk reduction activities.