Country Officials Name Silos, Data and Finance as Climate-Risk Barriers

Disaster and climate officials from five countries told a COP31 audience on Nov. 13, 2026, that the plans meant to protect communities are being written by agencies that rarely talk to each other. The UNDRR–AFAD dialogue produced no formal decisions. Instead, organizers handed participants a three-month assignment and promised an issue brief to capture what works.

---

• Silos, fragmented data and finance are the core barriers to joint planning, practitioners from Togo, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Scotland and Türkiye said
• UNDRR and AFAD will publish an issue brief on the lessons, with participants given three months of homework
• Only 78 countries have both disaster and adaptation plans, according to UNDRR mapping. Another 151 have disaster-only plans and 88 have adaptation-only plans.
• Brazil's ADAPTA Cities program now reaches 500+ municipalities
• UN, AFAD and COP31 Presidency leaders say risk data must drive investment decisions

---

The Practitioners' Verdict: Too Many Plans, Not Enough Plumbing

The longest stretch of the dialogue was a country panel moderated by Catalina Jaime, Head of the Secretariat, Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership. The officials on it run disaster agencies, environment ministries and insurance pools. They described the same problem in different accents: parallel mandates, scattered data and money that arrives too late.

Why it matters: Climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) usually sit with different ministries, run on different budgets and answer to different global agreements. When those systems don't connect, the cost lands on local emergency managers and the communities they serve.

Where things stand: Ghana's representative laid out how disaster, environmental and planning duties are divided among the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), the Environmental Protection Agency and planning authorities. Coordination among those bodies cannot depend on goodwill alone, she said. Integration, said Charlotte Norman, Director for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction, National Disaster Management Organization of Ghana, "has to be institutionalized."

Togo's approach relies on a national platform and on school curricula, according to the Director General of Togo's National Civil Protection Agency, a lieutenant colonel. Teaching risk in the classroom builds coordination and awareness before a disaster rather than during one.

Alexandra Musina, Manager, Modeling Analysis and Forecasting Department, Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan, described adaptation planning that cascades from the national level down to subnational levels. Catherine White, Deputy Director of International Development and Climate Change, Scottish Government, also sat on the panel.

The money question: Balkis, Secretary General, Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP), highlighted two things: good data and fast payouts. Panelists pointed to ex ante financing as one fix. That means arranging money before a disaster strikes rather than scrambling for it afterward. For households and small governments, the speed of a payout can decide whether recovery takes months or years.

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: No votes were taken.
- National disaster agencies like NADMO and Togo's civil protection agency gain a forum for arguing that coordination needs legal mandates.
- Risk insurers such as TCIP gain visibility for pre-arranged financing models.
- Local officials stand to benefit most if the lessons translate into fewer, better-aligned plans.

What's next: A closing speaker from UNDRR set a three-month homework assignment for participants. UNDRR and AFAD will produce an issue brief capturing the panel's lessons.

---

Leaders Pitch an "Implementation COP"

The session opened with three senior officials who framed COP31 as an implementation COP. Their argument was that risk information has to change where money goes, not just fill reports.

The basics: UNDRR is the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Sendai Framework is the global agreement on disaster risk reduction. The Paris Agreement governs climate action. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) track broader development progress.

Why it matters: Separate reporting under Paris, Sendai and the SDGs burdens local officials. Integrating those streams aims to shift investment decisions toward risk-informed development.

Where things stand: Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR, cast comprehensive risk management as a principle, a process and a partnership.

"Climate change is intensifying disaster risks around the world and generating cascading impacts across interconnected geographies and economies," said Kishore.

President Pehlivan of AFAD pressed for three things:
- Risk information that shapes development decisions
- Concrete coordination
- Measurable results

Halil Hasar, Chief Climate Diplomacy Officer, COP31 Presidency, noted that three separate frameworks produce three separate sets of plans. He described Türkiye's climate law and its local action plans as one way to pull them together.

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: The remarks set direction but carried no binding commitments.
- Development investors and finance ministries are the implicit audience, since leaders tied risk data to spending choices.
- Municipal planners could see a lighter reporting load if integration advances.

---

Brazil's Inheritance and a Global Gap Map

The COP30 host and UNDRR's Bonn office brought the numbers.

Why it matters: Joint planning could create a continuum from short-term emergency response to long-term risk management. The mapping shows how far most countries are from that.

Where things stand: Lincoln Muniz Alves, General Coordinator for Multilevel Integration and Risk Analysis, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of Brazil, cited three tools:
- Brazil's national climate plan
- The ADAPTA Brasil platform
- ADAPTA Cities, which works with more than 500 municipalities

He tied that work to coordination, risk data and building local capacity.

Animesh Kumar, Head of Bonn Office, UNDRR, presented UNDRR's global plan mapping:
- 151 countries with disaster-only plans
- 88 with adaptation-only plans
- 78 with both

He also described a leadership course that has reached 12,500 participants.

Decisions and stakeholder impacts: The 78-country figure frames the coherence gap the rest of the session tried to address. Municipal governments are at the center of Brazil's model. Countries holding only one type of plan are the clearest audience for UNDRR's capacity-building.

---

Looking Ahead

UNDRR and AFAD's forthcoming issue brief and the three-month participant assignment are the only concrete follow-ups announced. The dialogue signaled an implementation focus but produced no formal decisions. Readers tracking local resilience funding should watch whether the brief translates into guidance that reduces duplicate planning at the municipal level.