Last week, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction convened the Third Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, Switzerland. Held every two years, the Global Platform is the “primary multistakeholder forum for all parties involved in DRR … to share their experiences, commit to action and further guide the UNISDR system.”

After a week of lively discussions and thorough deliberation by more than 2,600 representatives of governments, inter- and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and academic institutions, it would be hard to draw any concise conclusions. In fact, the official Chair's Summary of the meeting still only exists in draft form as ISDR works furiously to assimilate the many stakeholder comments into a final comprehensive document.

In the interim, it's worth looking at a few of the substantial book-length reports that were presented for discussion last week. The Platform began with a presentation of the new Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2011. "GAR11" gives a succinct overview of disaster risk around the world and how that risk relates to economic development activities and governance issues.

However, as assessment group leader Andrew Maskrey chose to highlight in his presentation, GAR11 singles out drought as a special, hidden risk that “maybe more than any other … is constructed by economic decisions and social choices.” The need to better understand drought as a potentially underestimated and widespread hazard was echoed by the panel receiving the report. In particular, World Meteorological Organization Weather and DRR Services Director Geoffrey Love emphasized that better social measures of drought still need to be developed.

Drought and climate hazard themes continued through the Global Platform. At a side event on integrated drought risk management, U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System Director Roger Pulwarty asked a panel of experts about the meaning of “integrated” assessments in the drought context, the need to develop specific drought risk governance, and what new institutions should be developed to address these challenges. Recently published proceedings of an international expert meeting on Agricultural Drought Indices sponsored by the WMO, ISDR, and others, were also distributed.

The featured event “Operational Climate Services for Managing Socio-Economic Risks linked to the Changing Climate,” organized by the World Bank, a variety of UN agencies, and the Red Cross, examined the broader “link between hydro-meteorological extremes and socio-economic impacts in key sectors.” The session also used the WMO's recent release of Climate Knowledge for Action: A Global Framework for Climate Services—Empowering the Most Vulnerable to ask how better availability of operational climate information might reduce disaster risk and improve decision making.

More generally, the World Bank's World Reconstruction Conference, “the first large-scale global conference on natural disaster recovery and reconstruction,” ran concurrently and shared some sessions with the Global Platform. Unsurprisingly, the recent Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery—a joint World Bank and ISDR entity—book Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention was acclaimed in several events.

And if all of those serious words leave you exhausted, flip through Risk Returns, the newest ISDR–Tudor Rose Publishing coffee-table book collaboration. Fresh off the press copies were distributed at the Global Platform, but if you're closer to Boulder than Geneva, consider coming by the Natural Hazards Center Library to look at one of ours.