Digital Handbook for Youth Voluntary Commitments

Young people like you and I are powerful agents of change in preparing, responding,

recovering and reconstructing from disasters, as well as minimising and preventing

other crises, such as conflicts and epidemics. We also play an important role in

reducing the risks we face from disasters in a variety of ways, from pestering our

parents to get prepared to creating local action plans and advocating for positive

change on the issues that matter!

Time to show the world we mean business! To push the World to get prepared and to

show young people’s strength in tackling

disasters, Youth Beyond Disasters is

launching Global Youth Taking Action on

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), to gather

1000 Voluntary Commitments from youth all

over the world.

This handbook will help you to understand

what a Voluntary Commitment is and how you

can join. If you still have questions or need

help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

What are Voluntary Commitments?

The United Nation International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), the UN agency

facilitating the process of intergovernmental and interorganisational dialogue on DRR, has

called on civil society to submit Voluntary Commitments; in other words, to submit an “Action

Plan” explaining their involvement in DRR beyond the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk

Reduction (3WCDRR) held in Sendai, Japan, 14th to 18th March, 2015.

Voluntary Commitments are initiatives that are voluntarily undertaken by members of our

society, including governments, national or international organizations and all civil society.

The aim is to strengthen the implementation of this framework by involving all stakeholders

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that can contribute to reducing the risk of disasters and creating resilience, as stressed by the

UN General Assembly.

Why does UNISDR gather and publish voluntary commitments?

Voluntary commitments are an essential component of the Post 2015 Framework on DRR for

protecting lives, livelihoods, assets and the environment. Being a cornerstone in the

implementation of the Post 2015 Framework on DRR, they will bring concrete actions. They

will help us to have an overview of the DRR sphere and bring suitable solutions to the process

of implementation. It will be endorsed as a formal outcome of the 3WCDRR.

Who can submit Voluntary Commitments?

The UNISDR encourages everyone engaged in DRR to submit

Voluntary Commitments for the whole World to see, assess,

learn from, and build partnerships towards.

Do you want to share your action plan? Or do you want to

join us in creating safer world? All of you, young heroes or

organisations, are welcome to jump in. It’s YOU who

should submit Voluntary Commitments.

How to write a Voluntary Commitment

It is easy to write Voluntary Commitments once you have

gotten the hang of it! The key is to keep it short, simple and to

the point. The commitments will be categorised within three

goals. You will decide which goal you or your organisation

will tackle. Voluntary Commitments are written by following

a template provided by UNISDR.

The first step is to choose which goal your commitment relates to. Goal 1 is about

minimizing future risks while goal 2 is about diminishing the risks that already exist. Goal 3 is

about addressing resilience by empowering countries and communities to absorb loss and

damages, and therefore recover faster.

Goal 1 - Risk prevention: the adoption of risk-informed development pathways that

minimize the generation of new disaster risks.

Goal 2 - Risk reduction: actions to address and reduce pre-existing disaster risk

Goal 3 - Strengthening resilience: measures that enable nations and communities to

absorb loss and damage minimize impacts and recover.

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Since it can be a bit tricky to write a commitment for the first time, we will

walk you through the template from Targets to Timeframe:

Description:

Targets:

Indicators:

Means of

Verification:

Timeframe:

Still not certain? No worries, here are two examples of Voluntary Commitments. More can be

found on the UNISDR webpage here, http://www.wcdrr.org/preparatory/commitments

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How to submit your Voluntary commitment

All Voluntary Commitments should be submitted through the Youth Beyond Disasters website.

You can find the link below: http://youthbeyonddisasters.org/voluntarycommitments/

When?

Youth Beyond Disasters are offering to submit your commitments for you, so that you do not

need to worry about the actual submission process. It also means that your commitment adds to

the collective voice of youth, strengthening the message to the world leaders. Your commitment

will be showcased on the Youth Beyond Disasters website as well as the UNISDR website. The

First deadline for All Voluntary commitments is 7th February, 2015. We will analyse your

commitments and reflect them into the Children & Youth programme. If you want to influence to

the programme and to be shown in our website as a campaign, we encourage you to submit as

soon as possible.

Voluntary Commitments are the first step of a long journey... We are gathering 1000 Youth Voluntary Commitments, which will be shared on the Youth

Beyond Disasters and the UNISDR website. They will also be presented to the Member States

at the 3WCDRR., to inspire and strengthen their commitment to DRR.

Help us strengthen the youth voice of the World by encouraging friends and colleagues within

your network to submit their voluntary commitments too! Together we are creating a resilient

word - a world without disasters.

Keep in touch with our network through Facebook, Twitter and our webpage.

Thinking of joining us in Sendai? The registration is now open. See here:

http://youthbeyonddisasters.org/sendaiforum/

If you have feedback regarding this campaign, please contact hello@youthbeyonddisasters.org

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