In a world beleaguered by rising violent conflict, the impacts of the climate crisis, deepening mistrust in institutions, and the sharpest drop in human development in decades, we find ourselves confronting a perfect storm of evolving threats and outdated responses.

Figuring out how best to navigate this storm, sometimes quite literally, leaves many with a sense of uncertainty and dread about their lives and future. As the reoccurrence of disasters intensifies, the growing levels of anxiety among communities that live in fragile climate settings is palpable.

According to the latest Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, disasters are projected to increase by 40 percent in this decade alone. This puts people around the world at increased risk from many types of shocks. Simply responding to these on an individual basis won’t be enough. To save lives, livelihoods, and any hope of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, we need to ramp up our development efforts, by anticipating the needs of the most vulnerable, regardless of the type of disaster. 

While we can’t entirely prevent disasters from occurring, we can support individuals, communities, and countries to be better prepared. So, on this International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR), our message zeros in on the anticipatory tools and actions that are revolutionizing early warning and early action – supporting communities and institutions to put into place capabilities and systems that provide alerts, allowing people to anticipate and measure levels of risks and act in time.

This means making new technologies – and the ability to deploy them – available to all state and non-state actors who need to be a part of this effort. While IDDRR is a moment to take stock of progress made and to advocate action for the challenges ahead, it should also remind us of the unprecedented collective capacity we have – and need to deploy – to define a faster more agile way forward.

Today, UNDP offers new tools and resources to enable such choices. Through interconnected approaches that focus on forecasting and anticipation in planning and actions on prevention, response, and recovery, we’re doing more to help countries and communities understand the risks they face, and to better manage and reduce these risks.

Inclusive early warning and early action are vital to protect hard-won development gains, reduce the risk of recurrent disasters (and the repeating humanitarian case load) and build resilience so communities can get back on their own feet faster.