ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a wide-ranging view of the definition of regional organisations to examine the variety of roles that regional organisations can play in promoting disaster risk reduction (DRR), including climate change adaptation (CCA). It explores the following aspects of regional organisations: rationales or affinities for regional collaboration and organising structures of regional organisations. The inter-governmental regional organisations created in many geographic regions as membership organisations among nation States to address a wide range of political and economic cooperation issues and opportunities have recognised the importance of DRR/CCA. Regional platforms within the United Nations or its agencies have also played key roles in linking DRR/CCA to wider socioeconomic development agendas among member States in their regions, especially to ensure development programmes are risk-informed and to protect development gains. There is a long history of regional military cooperation that has been applied to DRR/CCA to anticipate and plan for shared threats to stability and to coordinate crisis response and management.
