Source: UNISDR Disaster Risk Reduction
Venue
Qatar National Convention Centre, Doha (Room TBC)
Background
The Second World Summit for Social Development takes place at a defining moment for global development. As the 2030 Agenda enters its final stretch, only 17% of SDG targets are currently on track. The promise to end poverty, expand decent work, and reduce inequalities is faltering under the weight of intersecting crises, from escalating climate extremes and pandemics to economic shocks and pandemics. At the same time, 2025 also marks the final implementation phase of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.
In this context, disasters have become a structural feature of development, not isolated events. Each year, they affect over 100 million people, disrupt livelihoods, displace millions, and erase decades of progress in a matter of hours. These impacts are not evenly distributed: they disproportionately affect people in vulnerable situations such as women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, and those living in poverty, further entrenching cycles of inequality and exclusion.
Social development systems such as social protection, health, education, and employment are not designed to withstand compounding shocks. Most social protection schemes do not anticipate risk or reach the most exposed communities. Critical infrastructure is rarely built with future hazards in mind. According to the Global Assessment Report 2025, more than 80 percent of global disaster losses are linked to sectors critical to human development, including education, health, housing, and transport. These systemic weaknesses are not only exposing people to greater risk but are also locking countries into cycles of crisis and recovery, rather than enabling sustainable and inclusive progress.
Yet this crisis presents an opportunity, the 2023 Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework and the outcome of the 8th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction – The Geneva Call for Disaster Risk Reduction – highlighted that countries which invest in risk-informed planning, governance, and infrastructure experience fewer lives lost, faster recoveries, and more equitable development. DRR is not solely a matter of responding to disasters; it is fundamentally about reshaping the way public systems are designed and implemented, to be more inclusive, forward-looking, and resilient to a broad spectrum of risks. Risk-informed development means making deliberate choices to anticipate, plan for, reduce and prevent disaster risk. It means aligning DRR with poverty eradication, decent work, housing, and inclusion – not as an add-on, but as a core strategy for sustainable development. This requires political will, institutional change, and financing systems that reward prevention and protect the most vulnerable.
The 2025 World Summit on Social Development is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reposition DRR as a foundation for social justice and equity. Building resilience is not only a technical imperative, it is a social and moral one. This Solutions Session will spotlight the transformative potential of DRR to protect development gains, tackle root causes of vulnerability, and ensure no one is left behind.
Objective
This Solutions Session will challenge the conventional view of DRR as a siloed technical tool and reframe it as a transformative accelerator of social development. It will:
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Highlight policy shifts where governments use data, anticipatory action, and inclusive design to future-proof their development pathways.
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Catalyze institutional and policy shifts across Member States, the UN system and the private sector to mainstream DRR as a core approach to achieving inclusive, risk-informed, and future-ready social development.