The 19^th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU), held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July, produced a decision to establish an African Risk Capacity Secretariat (ARC).The UNISDR website reports that the Secretariat will be “a specialized agency of the African Union which will help elaborate a legal agreement on a pooled risk insurance facility for droughts, floods, earthquakes and cyclones.” In addition, “the agency will set up rules to guide the team of experts form the African Risk Capacity project, which will use satellite weather surveillance technology and the Africa RiskView software developed by the UN World Food Programme to trigger fast-disbursing funds after quickly calculating the cost of food needs for counties hit by drought.” ARC will also be responsible for assisting participating countries in building their respective capacities for risk management, developing and approving contingency plans as well as monitoring the use of ARC payments.

Abdou Sané, a Member of Parliament from Senegal and a UNISDR Parliamentary Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction, equated the action by the African Union as crossing a line between “a philosophy of reaction” to a “proactive approach of forecast and reduction of climate risks.” The establishment of the ARC Secretariat also represents a major success for Senegal. “Within the African Union, the intellectual, political and material contribution of Senegal was key to the design of pan-African management policies,” according to Abdou Sané, who also noted that “the idea for a pan-African risk management policy grew from an initiative of the Senegalese government that began in the national civil protection agency (Direcetion de la Protection Civile DPC) which is located within the Senegalese Ministry of Interior, and is the organ tasked with disaster management and response including risks related to locusts, bushfires and floods.”