Strengthening risk management frameworks to mitigate transboundary risks: Lessons from COVID-19 pandemic

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as one of the severe and important health disasters during recent times. The impacts of the COVID-19 have spanned across the globe and rightly qualify to be a transboundary disaster. When looked through the lens of transboundary risks, COVID-19 is not the first of its kind. Health and non-health transboundary risks are on the rise during recent years due to the integration at the regional and global scales. The paper argues that, despite the growth in the number of transboundary risks, the risk management systems at the national and international levels are largely oblivious of such risks and hence suitable solutions could not be developed. The chapter presents various past experiences of transboundary disasters, their impacts, and important lessons related to risk reduction. It highlights the need for recognition of transboundary risks and put in place an integrated risk reduction framework from international to the national and local levels and across multiple sectors, which entails building the capacity of institutions and revamping information and decision support systems. The chapter further argues that countries such as India and Japan have the potential to lead the formulation and implementation of such a risk reduction framework that can effectively address transboundary risks given their emerging role in the Asia region and beyond.