Workshop: Getting Ready for Floods in 2021 and Beyond with Anticipatory Actions (AA) and Shock Responsive Social Protection (SRSP)

• H.E. Kun Kim, Senior Minister and First Vice-President, NCDM
• H.E. Vong Sauth, Minister, MoSVY
• H.E. Samheng Boros, Secretary of State, MoSVY
• H.E. Dr Chan Narith, Under Secretary of State, MEF and Secretary General, GS-NSPC (TBC)

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honor to open this virtual workshop, “Getting Ready for Floods in 2021 and Beyond with Anticipatory Actions and Shock Responsive Social Protection.”

Being prepared is key to success.

Prevention provides better value for money than disaster response.

Preparedness is our only line of defense.

This is nothing new. But the recent floods in both Europe and China are reminding us about the essence of anticipatory action.

Cambodia is vulnerable to natural hazards and climate change, with a high proportion of its population exposed to natural hazards every year, including storms, floods and droughts.

The frequency and severity of natural disasters are exacerbated by climate change, which threatens social and economic development and human rights.

The COVID-19 pandemic further compounds this and threatens to undermine past development gains. Poor and vulnerable households are often the most exposed to these shocks and have the least capacity to cope.

In Cambodia, responding to the pandemic and extreme weather events go hand in hand. Multiple compounding crisis requires all of us to be agile and resilient.

Responding to a crisis also provides an opportunity for transformation. To change the status quo. What can we learn from past responses that can strengthen preparedness for disaster risks, future shocks and crises?

Despite policies on disaster risk reduction and disaster management and high-level commitment, the vision is yet to be fully embedded in practice at all levels. Disaster response has been largely ex-post, signaling the need to strengthen the early warning and response systems.

Past experiences from the drought in 2015-16 and floods in 2020 suggest opportunities for anticipatory and early action. For example, we could intervene earlier to mitigate the impacts and protect the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable populations.

Experience from the COVID-response tells us about the importance of systems strengthening. Preparedness for future crisis requires similar systems strengthening, with better use of data, science and politics for trust building.

How can we apply the lessons learned more practically?

First, there is a need for a whole of government response. Inter-governmental coordination in large scale shock or disaster scenarios is lacking, a key point that H.E. Boros from MOSVY raised about the floods last year.

What type of leadership is required from the National Council for Disaster Management? How can MOSAVY, NCDM and other line ministries collaborate and coordinate better?

Second, this is an opportunity to more strongly bridge the humanitarian development nexus. We need to ensure that local & sectoral preparedness and contingency planning support local development.

This can be done by leveraging existing social protection and social assistance schemes for an early response to mitigate the impact of large-scale shocks affecting whole communities and support affected households.

An important practical step is to develop a sectoral contingency plan for social assistance, which aligns with the established national contingency plan developed by NCDM and updated in 2021.  

Third, I see the need for setting aside ‘reserves’ for responding to shocks. Before the disaster strikes, there is a window of opportunity to implement effective early actions triggered by early warnings and through pre-committed financing.

In terms of financing, with the experience from the COVID-19 response, I am optimistic that the Royal Government of Cambodia has the capacity to leverage the existing “budgetary reserve” to put in place a disaster risk financing strategy, ensuring adequate funding in place to support these actions.

Existing systems like IDPoor and social assistance schemes can be tweaked or expanded to respond to new shocks, at scale if need be, and COVID response has shown how it could be done with high-level commitment and resources.

Fourth, adequate and reliable data. Data - whether from early warning systems, forecasts and monitoring systems- can and should drive early actions. This is not necessarily happening yet.

The United Nations family in Cambodia stands ready to provide technical support to the RGC to take these approaches forward. Together we will explore the opportunities how these can be implemented in Cambodia to better prepare for potential floods in 2021 and building systems that are more resilient to withstand future shocks.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and concrete actions during the workshop.

Thank you.