GP2025 | Day 3 Reflections

We’ve built frameworks, run simulations, modeled risk, and even costed the cost of inaction. And yet: disasters remain deeply human – political, unequal, and often repeated. We fund recovery, not prevention. We transfer risk instead of sharing it. And we keep calling for systems change from within the very systems that fail us!

✴ Session 1: Preparedness, or Just Performance?

The session on “Inclusive and Multisectoral Preparedness” offered a familiar script — coordination, inclusion, systems. But it also showed cracks in our collective performance.

• Duplication of efforts was raised — again. Still.

• We are reacting, not responding.

• And the question nobody quite answered: do we have the right indicators to measure preparedness?

We heard examples from Japan, Kazakhstan, and Mexico, where aging, mental health, and localized leadership are reshaping preparedness approaches. But my thought throughout the session was: We often hear about ‘multisectoral coordination’ — but who leads when risks are cross-sectors? And how do we avoid blame-shifting when things go wrong?

✴ Session 2: Resilience in Fragile Settings — The Missing Link?

This session cut deeper. Speakers from IOM, IFRC, ActionAid, and Timor-Leste reminded us that resilience isn't a technical term — it’s survival.

Three messages stood out:

1. Local leadership is not a “nice to have.” It’s the most effective solution.

2. We need to bridge the humanitarian-development divide.

3. We are still investing only after the damage. The IFRC’s Jagan Chapagain said it plainly: “We wait for the dead bodies.” It is true, we've seen this in the history of Bosnia and Armenia 🤷

I asked IOM’s Rania Sharshr about this gap — between data and political action. Her answer? They continue with or without funding. Collaboration isn’t a strategy. It’s a necessity.
"You’re not vulnerable because of who you are. You're vulnerable because you're left out of the conversation."

✴ Session 3: Rethinking Resilience Financing

Here’s where my engineering brain kicked in. Risk transfer? Yes. But what about risk sharing? Are we still pushing models that transfer risk to institutions or individuals who can’t bear it?

The conversation around resilience-linked finance, embodied carbon, glacier collapse, and budget tagging was technically rich — but one challenge echoed loudest: "We spend on DRR, but what is the outcome?"

Switzerland spends CHF 3 billion annually on DRR. But what’s the return? Unlike other sectors, resilience has no ribbon-cutting moment. The best outcome is… nothing happening. 

What I Learned

• DRR is not just a technical discipline. It’s a deeply social, political, and moral one. Although economic and political wills were used interchangeably, but we all agree the economic case is clear, so lets say things as they are, there is limited political will)

• Preparedness is messy. Indicators are imperfect. But stories, data, and action must converge.

• Fishbowl formats, circular seating, and smaller sessions created real dialogue — something we often miss in “panelism.”

• We are closer to 2050 now than we were in May 🤐

For Readers of This Site

• If you're in policy: ask if your risk strategy addresses vulnerability — not just events.

• If you're in research: explore the “Resilience Hub” model — schools, clinics, public centers in hazard-prone areas.

• If you're in finance: challenge ROI models that ignore long-term prevention and well-being impacts.

• If you're in Palestine or other fragile settings: resilience is not rhetoric. It is survival.

“Resilience” has been said so many times it risks losing meaning, i think this is something I see in my country, where we've overused the word. But in Geneva this week, it meant something. It meant accountability. It meant discomfort. It meant asking: Is today’s disaster the outcome of yesterday’s development?

The platform is declared closed. 

But a lot of work to do for the next 5 years of the Sendai framework, (a bit optimistic?😵‍💫)