Sendai Framework Indicator Monitoring
Also known as: Sendai Framework Monitor, Disaster Risk Reduction Target Monitoring, Sendai Indicators
Sendai Framework indicator monitoring is the standardized methodology by which countries measure progress in reducing disaster risk under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, adopted by United Nations member states and coordinated by UNDRR. The framework sets seven global targets — reducing disaster mortality, the number of affected people, direct economic loss, and damage to critical infrastructure and basic services, while increasing national and local risk-reduction strategies, international cooperation, and access to multi-hazard early warning. Progress against these targets is measured through 38 agreed indicators, populated from national disaster loss databases and policy records, normalized where appropriate by population or GDP, and compared against a 2005-2015 baseline. Reported through the Sendai Framework Monitor, the system makes disaster-risk reduction measurable and comparable across countries and links directly to indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Key highlights
- Provides an internationally agreed, standardized way to measure and compare disaster-risk-reduction progress.
- Covers both outcome targets (losses) and capacity targets (strategies, cooperation, early warning) for a balanced picture.
- Normalization by population and GDP enables fair comparison across countries of different size.
- Aligns with Sustainable Development Goal indicators, integrating disaster-risk reduction into development monitoring.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use Sendai Framework indicator monitoring when you need to measure, report, or compare progress on disaster-risk reduction at national, regional, or global scale against an agreed international standard, or to evaluate whether policies are reducing disaster losses over time. It is appropriate where national disaster loss databases and policy records exist or can be built, and where comparability across countries and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals is required. It is less suited to analyzing the causes of a single disaster, to fine-grained local vulnerability assessment, or to settings lacking the data infrastructure to populate the indicators reliably. The method is a policy-monitoring instrument, strongest for accountability and trend analysis rather than mechanistic explanation or event forecasting.
Strengths & limitations
- Provides an internationally agreed, standardized way to measure and compare disaster-risk-reduction progress.
- Covers both outcome targets (losses) and capacity targets (strategies, cooperation, early warning) for a balanced picture.
- Normalization by population and GDP enables fair comparison across countries of different size.
- Aligns with Sustainable Development Goal indicators, integrating disaster-risk reduction into development monitoring.
- Depends on the completeness and accuracy of national disaster loss databases, which vary widely in quality.
- Attributing losses to disasters and disentangling them from underlying trends requires consistent, sometimes contested, accounting rules.
- Capacity indicators (such as having a strategy) measure existence rather than effectiveness.
- Year-to-year loss volatility from rare extreme events can obscure underlying progress over short horizons.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
What are the seven global targets of the Sendai Framework?
Four are outcome targets to be reduced: (A) disaster mortality, (B) the number of affected people, (C) direct economic loss relative to GDP, and (D) damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services. Three are capacity targets to be increased: (E) the number of countries with national and local disaster-risk-reduction strategies, (F) international cooperation to developing countries, and (G) the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information. Together they define the outcomes and capacities the framework aims to improve by 2030.
How is progress actually measured and reported?
Each target is operationalized through agreed indicators — 38 in total — that specify exactly what to count. Countries populate these from national disaster loss databases and policy records, normalize outcome figures by population or GDP, and compare recent values to a 2005-2015 baseline. Data are entered into the online Sendai Framework Monitor maintained by UNDRR, which aggregates national reports into regional and global assessments. Because many indicators are shared with the Sustainable Development Goals, the same data serve both reporting systems.
Why are disaster losses normalized by population or GDP?
Because absolute losses depend heavily on how large and wealthy a country is, raw figures are not comparable and can rise simply because population or assets grew. Normalizing mortality and affected numbers per capita and economic loss relative to GDP isolates the change in risk from the change in exposure size, allowing fair comparison across countries and an honest assessment of whether disaster risk is genuinely falling rather than merely tracking demographic or economic expansion.
Sources
- 1.United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015). Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. UNDRR, Geneva.
- 2.Delforge, D., Wathelet, V., Below, R., Lanfredi Sofia, C., Tonnelier, M., van Loenhout, J. A. F., & Speybroeck, N. (2025). EM-DAT: the Emergency Events Database. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 124, 105509.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 23). Sendai Framework Indicator Monitoring. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/disaster-studies/sendai-framework-indicator-monitoring