International disaster relief is confronted with tremendous challenges such as ongoing political instability in many regions of the world as well as the negative consequences of climate change. The Development and Peace Foundation, based in Bonn, invited a number of German and international experts from the field of disaster relief to the Berlin Summer Dialogue to discuss how to deal with these challenges and outline the specific responsibilities within the international community in the light of changing framework conditions.



The discussions revealed still existing gaps between the international disaster and climate change discourses. However, experiences from practitioners on the ground also suggest that processes of integrating these two areas are already underway, linking the short and long term priorities in preparing for the consequences of weather extremes. Marcus Oxley, Executive Director of the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction, stressed that such a development is urgently needed to move away from an approach that is mainly focused on single events to a process of building resilient structures. One step in this direction can be tools such as the Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Risk and Adaptation Assessment developed by the organisation Tearfund.



Another remaining challenge is to bridge the gap between local knowledge resources and international policy making. As outlined by Mo Hamza, Director of Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP), there is the need to regionalize adaptation efforts to address the specific context of transboundary shared natural resources, such as water. Taking a regional perspective can strengthen dialogue and confidence building. However, such regional cooperation requires strong relations both between the government and civil society as well as between different governments and is likely to require the facilitating role of the international community. Here, the current discussion on “loss and damages” related to climate change as part of the international climate negotiations may offer promising entry points in the years to come.