Risk-informed decision-making: An agenda for improving risk assessments under HFA2

This guide by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) examines the technical, operational, and institutional barriers that prevent disaster risk assessments from effectively informing public policy and investment decisions. Drawing on research from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as case studies from Ghana, India, and Pakistan, the document provides a framework for improving the 'uptake' of risk information to support the successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA2).

• Disaster risk is defined as the interaction of hazardous physical events with vulnerable social conditions, typically expressed by the equation: Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability x Exposure. Some modern studies expand this to include 'capacity', referring to social, political, environmental, and economic factors that help reduce risk.
• Technical obstacles to the use of risk assessments include a lack of conceptual clarity, where different practitioner communities (such as those in disaster risk management versus climate change adaptation) use key terms like 'hazard' and 'risk' differently. This is exemplified in Costa Rica, where separate communities make it difficult to quantify risk for planning processes.
• Operational barriers often stem from a communication gap between scientists and decision-makers. Technical results are frequently presented in formats or languages that are too complex for officials to integrate into management processes, leading some decision-makers to dismiss scientific evidence.
• Institutional obstacles include low political salience, where disaster risk and climate adaptation are viewed as separate from sectoral development agendas. Additionally, short political cycles (typically four to six years) conflict with the decadal timescales of climate change and geological hazards, making immediate action difficult.
• The guide identifies several 'enabling factors' for successful risk assessment uptake, including moving from a 'project' approach to a 'process' approach, engaging end-users in the design phase, and building local technical capacity to ensure assessments do not have a 'short shelf life'.
• To increase impact, risk assessments should be targeted at specific sectoral agendas rather than imposing an 'integral' approach from the outside. This allows risk management to be framed within existing national development priorities.
• Risk assessments often fail because they only focus on negative outcomes. The guide suggests balancing the analysis by including the potential benefits of taking risks for economic growth, using cost-benefit analysis to help decision-makers relate findings to development needs.
• Case studies in Pakistan highlight significant gaps in coordination and data, noting the absence of a national database for disaster risk information and a lack of communication between national, provincial, and district disaster management authorities.
• In Ahmedabad, India, extreme heat was identified as a 'quiet hazard' that remained invisible to policy-makers until a major event in 2010 provided heat- and mortality-correlated data, which subsequently prompted the creation of a Heat-Health Action Plan.

APA

Wilkinson, E., & Brenes, A. (2014). Risk-informed decision-making: An agenda for improving risk assessments under HFA2. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CDKN-Guide_RiskAssessment_FINAL_WEB.pdf

Chicago

Wilkinson, Emily, and Alonso Brenes. Risk-informed decision-making: An agenda for improving risk assessments under HFA2. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2014. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CDKN-Guide_RiskAssessment_FINAL_WEB.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Emily |last2=Brenes |first2=Alonso |title=Risk-informed decision-making: An agenda for improving risk assessments under HFA2 |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=April 2014 |url=http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CDKN-Guide_RiskAssessment_FINAL_WEB.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wilkinson2014riskinformed, author = {Wilkinson, Emily and Brenes, Alonso}, title = {{Risk-informed decision-making: An agenda for improving risk assessments under HFA2}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2014}, month = apr, url = {http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CDKN-Guide_RiskAssessment_FINAL_WEB.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }