Voicing the Community on the Global Stage: Reflections from the 2025 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

In early June 2025, YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU) attended the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) international forum organised by UNDRR in Geneva, Switzerland. This forum served as a meeting point for humanitarian actors, governments, academics, and the global community to evaluate and strengthen their joint commitment to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 is a global agreement that serves as a guide for countries, civil society and development actors in reducing disaster risk and impact. This framework emphasises the importance of proactive, evidence-based and inclusive disaster risk management.

The Sendai Framework for DRR has four priorities for action:

1. Understanding disaster risks, including through data, analysis and public education.
2. Strengthening risk governance, including legal frameworks and multi-stakeholder coordination.
3. Invest in risk reduction for resilience by funding infrastructure, early warning systems, and social protection.
4. Improving preparedness and effective response, as well as better recovery (build back better)

In addition, the Sendai Framework for DRR sets out seven measurable global targets to be achieved by 2030:

1. Significantly reducing casualties caused by disasters.
2. Reducing the number of people affected globally.
3. Reducing direct economic losses related to disasters on the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
4. Reducing damage to critical infrastructure and disruption to essential services (health, education, etc.).
5. Increasing the number of countries that have disaster risk reduction strategies at the national and local levels.
6. Enhancing international cooperation for developing countries in disaster risk reduction.
7. Improving access to early warning systems and disaster risk information for all.

The 2025 GPDRR is the official forum for reviewing progress in implementing the Sendai Framework for DRR at the global level. This year, the main focus is on accelerating disaster risk reduction through transformative and innovative approaches, with particular attention to the future of young people and the most vulnerable groups.

One of the key messages of the 2025 GPDRR is the need to mainstream the voices and actions of local communities in national and global strategies, and to bridge traditional knowledge with technology and public policy.

Refleksi: Ketika Suara Lokal Dibawa ke Panggung Global

One of the important moments during GPDRR 2025 was a meeting with Mr Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and co-chair of GP2025. During the dialogue, we directly conveyed good practices in community-level group assistance and the importance of direct funding support for grassroots community organisations. The meeting was facilitated by the Huariou Commission, of which YEU is a member and is currently running the Community Resilience Partnership Programme (CRPP), a programme that builds the resilience of women's groups to the impacts of climate change.

We note that community innovation has often been hampered by difficulties in accessing funding and the need to strengthen institutional capacity at the local level. We emphasise the importance of flexible, adaptive and locally risk-based funding mechanisms.

We are grateful that this voice has not only been heard, but also reflected in the official Co-Chairs Summary document of GP2025, specifically in point number 23, which explicitly states:

“Decentralised disaster risk reduction funding enables funding to reach local actors based on risk profiles, prioritising fragile and vulnerable contexts. This should support institutional capacity to assess risks, plan and implement DRR, and manage finances at the subnational level. Good practices in co-designing programmes between financial institutions and community-based organisations should be promoted and expanded to increase direct access to local funding. Governments should increasingly commit to setting aside a percentage of bilateral and multilateral funding to support locally-led DRR initiatives."

This recommendation is a crucial step forward, opening up opportunities for a more equitable, evidence-based funding system that favours the most affected communities.

Bringing Innovation from the Community to the World Stage

As part of the GP2025 event series, YEU was selected as one of the speakers in the Ignite Stage session through a concept note entitled Building Locally Led Disaster Resilience through Community-Led Innovation Partnerships. Through the Community-Led Innovation Partnership (CLIP) initiative, which has been run with local innovator partners since 2021, YEU has demonstrated that local innovation can be a real solution for contextual, inclusive and sustainable risk reduction. In this session, YEU presented several examples of IDEAKSI innovations, such as:

• Karang Taruna Prima Gadung with its Bambu Jawa Jahit Bumi innovation for landslide mitigation in its area
• Mobile kitchens for rapid response during disasters
• Inclusive educational games for children with disabilities.
• Smart mist irrigation for water efficiency for farmers.
• As well as environmentally friendly agricultural innovations for drought mitigation.

All of this shows that communities are not merely beneficiaries, but key actors of change. YEU's role as an Innovation Hub through IDEAKSI is to strengthen the capacity of innovators, connect them with technical experts to refine their innovations, and facilitate access to networks with humanitarian and disaster management actors in Indonesia.

In addition to appearing on the Ignite Stage, YEU was also entrusted to be one of the panellists at the Ministerial Roundtable of GPDRR 2025. This session raised the theme of Innovation and Strategic Foresight for Disaster Risk Reduction and became one of the most strategic forums in the GPDRR, as it brought together policy makers from governments, multilateral institutions, and civil society representatives at the global level. In this space, countries reported on transformative approaches and innovations in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and discussed how long-term perspectives can be translated into policies and concrete actions.

YEU is here to bring community experience to Indonesia, particularly through the CLIP initiative. On this occasion, we presented four key recommendations that arose from our fieldwork:

1. Recognise and meaningfully involve community leadership in the planning, implementation and evaluation of DRR programmes.
2. Provide flexible funding to enable communities to continuously trial, learn and adapt innovations.
3. Strengthen the technical capacity and confidence of communities so that they can manage risks independently and sustainably.
4. Build equal partnerships between communities and other stakeholders, such as academics, government, media and the private sector, so that local solutions can become part of national and even global policy.

YEU's involvement in this forum not only highlighted good practices from Indonesia, but also affirmed the community's position as the centre of an inclusive and future-oriented DRR strategy.

In several panel sessions and group discussions, we also emphasised the importance of:

• Strengthening early warning systems and inclusive community-based anticipatory actions.
• Mainstreaming at-risk groups in DRR policies
• And bridging community innovation with technical support and national policies.

In addition to being active in the GP2025 sessions, YEU, as part of the Indonesian Delegation, also had the opportunity to hold bilateral meetings with the team from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) to discuss further synergies between local initiatives and the global humanitarian coordination system. The meeting was led by the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture to discuss the expansion of ASEAN regional cooperation, the strengthening of national clusters, and collaboration with the private sector in disaster risk reduction. 

GPDRR 2025 provided us with an opportunity to learn, share, and strengthen YEU's position as part of the global ecosystem in disaster risk reduction. We returned home with renewed enthusiasm to expand partnerships, strengthen local innovation, and encourage recognition of the voices and roles of grassroots communities.