Towards the Development and Implementation of Effective Policies for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

The development and implementation of effective policies to ensure disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) need close collaboration and knowledge exchange between decision makers, the scientific community, the private sector, and civil society organisations, as well as the public. In practice, two major problems have been identified. First, knowledge about DRR and CCA is often fragmented among the different stakeholders and disciplines. Secondly, the various regional levels (local, national and international) and different scales of crises involve a range of stakeholders with widely different competencies to deal with constantly changing risks that require dynamic adaptation. This policy brief indicates the key findings and recommendations for policy making in DRR and CCA based on the results of the FP7- funded project KNOW-4-DRR. Key findings relate to 1) understanding and addressing the gaps between knowledge and the implementation of policies, 2) mechanisms and processes for overcoming barriers to sharing and implementing knowledge and 3) framing a knowledge management system, achieved through interactive workshops and living labs as test environments for tools and methodologies.