Fragility and crisis are the biggest obstacles to achieving the SDGs, affecting both low and middle-income countries.  A number of recent high-level policy and reform processes, including the UN SG’s prevention agenda and the UN – World Bank Pathways for Peace report have stressed the importance of informed prevention.  Along this vein, UNDP’s Strategic Plan (2018-2021) acknowledges diverse and growing risks and the threat they pose to reversing development gains.  Similarly, UNDP needs to be prepared to assess and address crisis-related risks proactively. 

In the Arab States region, several initiatives recently undertaken by the Regional Programme, in particular the Arab Development Portal, as well as by UNDP Country Offices demonstrated the potential of innovation for the enhancement of crisis tracking practices.

At HQ level, as part of its mandate on early warning / early action, the Crisis Response Unit (CRU) supports UNDP’s capacity for contextual risk tracking, corporate crisis preparedness and rapid programme adaptation. To this end, CRU has developed the Crisis Risk Dashboard (CRD), a dynamic internal platform meant to facilitate information gathering, tracking, and visualization on an ongoing basis, and which can be customized to the specific national contexts and needs of Country Offices.

This workshop aims to bring together these different streams of work in order to compare experiences, share lessons learned and ultimately improve UNDP’s practices of crisis risk analysis and corporate preparedness in the Arab States region, at regional level as well as for Country Offices.