The Peace Imperative for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

Laura Peters, Oregon State University (United States)

Disasters disproportionately affect conflict-affected regions, where approximately two billion people reside, posing significant challenges for disaster risk reduction (DRR). This reality has increasingly spurred calls for violent conflict to be included in the global DRR agenda, but consideration of peace has been lacking. This study investigated how the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) engages with peace through a document analysis, revealing three key findings. First, the SFDRR does not mention “peace,” mirroring its lack of reference to conflict. Second, while peace-related terms appear throughout the SFDRR in themes related to partnership and all-of-society approaches, this engagement is superficial. Third, the SFDRR’s approach is fundamentally problematic for advancing peace due to its avoidance of the complex social and political dynamics inherent to disaster risk and its reduction. This study concludes with recommendations for a global DRR policy that not only implicitly relies on peace but actively contributes to peacebuilding in the world’s diverse and divided societies. To be considered as part of the proposed panel: Engaging unnatural disasters in environmental peacebuilding