Letters from Sendai no. 9: a reflection on the Sendai targets

The final letter, posted on 20 March 2015 under the title “Reflection on WCDRR targets”, was signed jointly by Jaroslav Mysiak, Annegret Thieken, Swenja Surminski, Reinhard Mechler and Cédric Hananel.

Their verdict was that the Sendai outcome was weaker than they had hoped. None of the seven targets sets a quantitative degree of progress, and most are framed as global outcomes rather than as goals for individual countries.

The authors traced how the wording changed across three versions, with a linked comparison table:

They made three criticisms. Normalised targets, expressed per head of population or relative to the size of an economy, are poor proxies for exposure, because a country can meet them while the number of people and assets in harm’s way keeps growing. Target 5 depends on self-reporting and voluntary peer review, as under the previous framework. And the split between developed and developing countries over the language on international cooperation, already described in the sixth letter, shaped the final text.

The letter tied the outcome to three processes still to come in 2015: the Addis Ababa conference on development finance, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate talks. For a group that had spent the week arguing for measurable progress, the absence of a single quantitative target was the central disappointment. The letter closed with links to letters one to eight, which are gathered in the series overview. The adopted targets are listed in the eighth letter.