Updates on Sendai Targets A & B
By Prof Nibedita S. Ray-Bennett
On 12 December 2025, the Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN) held its 6th Annual General Meeting (AGM). Regional Coordinators from South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan), West Asia (Oman), South-Western Asia (Azerbaijan), and Africa (Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon) emphasised the urgent need for coordinated action as rising temperatures—driven by climate change—threaten health, productivity, and livelihoods, causing avoidable heat deaths.
Historically, ADN’s research and advocacy have concentrated on snakebites, drowning, maternal health, and tsunamis—major causes of disaster-related deaths. At the AGM, members unanimously agreed to broaden ADN’s strategic scope to include extreme heat as a key thematic area from 2026 onwards.
In this context, the report ‘Extreme Heat Risk Governance: Framework and Toolkit (2025)’, published by UNDRR and launched at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, was reviewed. The report comprises seven chapters: the first three address extreme heat challenges and governance; the remaining chapters outline the toolkit’s use and present Tools 1–3. This article offers a concise overview of the report and highlights three key implications for ADN.
Extreme heat risk governance challenges are: fragmented, uncoordinated policies, and a lack of enabling legislative or regulatory support, including:
- Reactive, short-term management approaches
- Lack of clear roles and responsibilities
- Data gaps and a lack of information integration, and a clear and common taxonomy
- Limited and disconnected financial mechanisms, and
- Inequitable impact on vulnerable populations
Understanding extreme heat: extreme heat risk governance is defined as “as a coordinated and inclusive process through which actors (e.g. government officials, communities, business owners, workers, investors and funders, civil society, international organizations, etc.), institutions (e.g. ministries, utilities, the health sector, worker coalitions, etc.), and assets (e.g. data systems, cooling centres, urban planning tools, critical infrastructure, basic services, etc.) work together across multiple timescales to guide, coordinate, implement and oversee the reduction of heat-related risks and related areas of policy, investment and action. The timescales span short-term emergency response and early warning systems, medium-term seasonal mitigation and preparedness, and long-term risk prevention, reduction, and resilience.
Effective extreme heat risk governance is guided by a set of core principles that are people- and ecosystem-centred, equitable, inclusive, agile, collaborative, proactive, whole-system, and evidence-informed.
A toolkit comprising three tools is proposed to assist decision makers in measuring, understanding, strengthening, and maintaining extreme heat risk governance. Although the initial focus is on the national level, the toolkit has been designed for application and further development at other geographic scales and in different jurisdictions.
Tool 1: Assess the Maturity of your Extreme Heat Risk Governance helps decision-makers systematically evaluate the current state of their extreme heat risk governance systems across five key dimensions: recognition, leadership, response, resources, and collaboration.
Tool 2: Operationalise Extreme Heat Risk Governance guides decision-makers in promoting cross-sectoral coordination, information-sharing, and institutional capacity to enhance heat risk governance through an iterative cycle centred on four components: Demand, Plan, Act, and Learn and Improve.
Tool 3: Plan for Heat Action guides decision-makers in identifying the key elements of effective Heat Action Plans, along with good practices and strategies for developing long-term, cross-sectoral heat resilience.
Appendix: To further ground these tools in real-world experience, the framework and toolkit also include an appendix comprising 13 case studies and external resources.Â
Implications for ADN This report marks a significant strategic shift for ADN. As a global network committed to reducing deaths caused by natural and human-made hazards, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there are several direct implications outlined in this report.
- Strategic Framing: Heat as a “Governance Crisis”
The ADN’s core philosophy, inspired by the “soft-systems approach,” argues that disaster deaths often stem from systemic failures of governance (Ray-Bennett, 2018), prevention, and timely medical intervention (Ray-Bennett, 2025). This report reflects systemic failures by shifting the focus from meteorological “events” to risk governance “systems.” This supports the ADN’s longstanding call to move beyond simple early warnings towards complex, cross-sectoral institutional accountability. It provides the ADN with an UN-backed language to advocate for “preventable and avoidable” versus “inevitable” deaths in the context of extreme heat.
- Data-Driven Advocacy for “Indirect” Deaths
The ADN has historically campaigned to raise awareness of indirect or avoidable disaster deaths, which are caused by the secondary effects of a hazard, in line with the Sendai Goals A and B (to reduce disaster mortality and the number of people affected by disasters by 2030). This report highlights how extreme heat triggers cascading failures in power grids, food supply, and other critical infrastructure. It provides the ADN with new evidence to argue that “avoidable deaths” from heat include not only heatstroke victims but also those lost to heat-induced malnutrition or medical equipment failures during power outages.
- Alignment with International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths (IAD4AD)
The ADN’s global campaign, IAD4AD, observed annually on 12 March, can utilise the toolkit’s specific metrics. By employing the report’s ‘standard’ and ‘good practice’ Heat Action Plans, ADN Regional Coordinators can develop specialised training and outreach activities for their target groups in respective countries. These include the Ahmedabad Case Station for Avoidable Heat Deaths, which concentrates on small outdoor businesses and transport workers, and the Case Station for Avoidable Snakebite Deaths in Odisha, India, which focuses on children. Our place-based and issue-based Case Stations for Avoidable Deaths highlight equity-centred governance, directly aligning with the report’s heat risk governance framework.
References:
Gordon, M., Reale, A.S., Joy Shumake-Guillemot, J. and Ward, A. (2025). Extreme Heat Risk Governance: Framework and Toolkit. UNDRR https://www.undrr.org/publication/documents-and-publications/extreme-heat-risk-governance-framework-and-toolkit
Ray-Bennett, N.S. (2025). Avoiding Disaster Deaths:Â Why so many people die? Springer, Switzerland. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031812996
Ray-Bennett, N.S. (2018). Avoidable Deaths: A Systems Failure Approach to Disaster Risk Management. Springer Nature: Switzerland. Environmental Hazard Series. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-66951-9 Â