2021 was a year of accelerated collaboration between the ARISE Network and the UNDP-OCHA Connecting Business Initiative (CBi), a partnership which leverages their respective mandates, dedicated to private sector resilience building, multi-hazard risk reduction, and disasters prevention. Two key regional events which took place in 2021 testify to this flourishing collaboration.
One of them is the webinar focused on ‘Strengthening the role of the African Private Sector in Disaster Risk Management’ jointly organized by the ARISE Africa Networks and CBi. This webinar was part of the celebrations of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, which takes place on 13th October every year. The webinar underlined existing challenges and opportunities for private sector engagement in disaster risk management in Sub-Saharan Africa. CBi and ARISE Africa also disclosed their plan to hold a joint series of awareness campaigns and virtual roadshows leading to the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, in May 2022.
The second event took place during the ARISE Forum organized ahead of the Seventh Regional Platform for DRR for the Americas & the Caribbean. For this event, CBi organized a Turbo Talk on ‘The Role of Private Sector Networks in Disaster Preparedness, Response and Recovery’. The event featured an intervention from CBi coordinator Kareem Elbayar, who gave various examples of private sector collective actions undertaken by the UNDP-OCHA initiative. The focus of these actions was to support humanitarian and development efforts in the face of disasters and build the resilience of communities.
These are concrete outputs from the efforts of the two entities to better define their collaboration, both at Board and Secretariat levels. Further details can be found in the outline below.