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Analysis

Advancing Disaster Risk Preparedness, Missing Psychosocial Response at the 2025 Johannesburg Summit

Brittaney Warren, G20 Research Group London

South Africa led the G20 summit, held on November 22–23, 2025, on African soil for the first time in the G20’s history. The leaders, and their ministers and working groups, met throughout the year against a backdrop of volatile leadership from the United States, violations of international norms causing major conflicts, and a changed climate affecting lives and livelihoods. In 2025 global economic losses from climate-related disasters reached $250 billion and caused severe health impacts, including more than 3,000 heat-related deaths in Europe, North America and Australia, tens of thousands of people suffering from cholera and dengue outbreaks from flooding in South Asia, and rising mental health crises around the world due to displacement, loss of livelihoods and post-traumatic stress. On the African continent, in 2024 alone 700,000 people were displaced by floods, heatwaves and droughts.

This is why South African president Cyril Ramaphosa used the G20 platform to advance commitments on global disaster risk reduction and resilience (DRR). The Johannesburg Summit gave 6% of its 195 commitments to DRR, the highest to date, and proportionally tied with the 2023 New Delhi Summit while at least doubling that of all previous summits where DRR commitments were made (see Appendix A). The 2024 Rio de Janeiro Summit gave 3% of its commitments to DRR, the second highest to date.

Brazil in 2024 also created the first G20 DRR ministerial meeting and launched a DRR working group to develop principles for investing in DRR. South Africa continued this initiative, holding the G20’s second DRR ministerial meeting on October 13, 2025, and endorsing the finalized G20 Voluntary High-Level Principles for Investing in DRR, which strengthens the global Sendai Framework for DRR 2015–2030 and its third target on investment.

These ministerial meetings each produced approximately the same number of commitments – 23 in 2024 and 25 in 2025. Both emphasized inclusivity and the most vulnerable, investment in DRR-informed development, and early warning systems. South Africa added two commitments on climate-related disasters, where 2024 had none: those were to advance climate monitoring and forecasting services for early warning systems and to invest in development plans that reduce risk exposure to hazards exacerbated by climate change. It also added a specific commitment on heat as a hazard, agreeing to scale up heat mitigation and prevention measures.

The ministers also expanded their support for global DRR initiatives, recognizing three in 2024 and eight in 2025 (see Appendix B). There was also a rise in such recognition at the leaders’ level, from two in 2024 to five in 2025. The Sendai Framework for DRR 2015–2030 is seen as the overarching global framework for DRR and has been endorsed consistently by both the G20 ministers and leaders. The UN Early Warnings for All Initiative was first endorsed by the ministers in 2024 but took another push from them in 2025 to get to the leaders’ level. These initiatives heavily emphasize resilience building through affordability (i.e., of the green and grey infrastructure needed for adaptation), for those most vulnerable to the impacts of disasters (i.e., small island developing states and least developed countries), and solutions for unlocking financing (i.e., debt relief and global funds).

This expansion signals an important advancement. However, the G20, at both the ministerial and leaders’ levels, ignores the health impacts of disasters, including mental health. Even at the broader global level, there is little to no attention to the individual and community-level psychosocial impacts of disasters. The Sendai Framework has one call to action for mental health in its 37 pages. It states that in preparation plans for rebuilding after a disaster “it is important to enhance recovery schemes to provide psychosocial support and mental health services for all people in need.” The UN’s latest action plan for its Early Warnings initiative and the G20’s new High-Level Principles make no mention of mental health at all.

This absence is concerning. High rates of psychological disorders in the context of extreme weather events have been well documented. Sudden disasters, such as wildfires and floods, leave those affected in shock, confusion and disorientation. Ongoing disasters, such as drought and pollution, cause stress, anxiety and depression. Exposure to natural disasters is often compounded by other determinants of health, raising the risk of post-traumatic stress symptoms, including many years after the event. The World Health Organization offers five recommendations to address these impacts: integrate climate change consideration into mental health policies, integrate mental health considerations into climate change policies, integrate mental health/climate disasters into existing frameworks (i.e., the Sendai Framework and Paris Agreement), implement multisectoral and community-based approaches to reduce vulnerabilities, and increase funding for mental health. To this can be added the need to develop stand-alone global framework and principles on psychosocial disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

Although the G20 is the world’s premier economicforum, it has increasingly expanded its mandate to include more social, environmental and health issues. From the G20’s economic perspective, lost productivity due to mental health issues costs the global economy approximately $100 trillion per year. As the US, led by President Donald Trump, takes over the G20 presidency, it is unlikely that this issue will be advanced in 2026. However, the rest of the G20 leaders’ and their ministers can and should continue to implement the DRR commitments they made this year, looking ahead to the UK’s 2027 G20 summit, and engaging constructively with civil society, including mental health professionals, sub-national governments and global DRR-relevant forums to fill the mental health–disaster governance gap at all levels.

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Appendix A: G20 Summit Commitments on Risk Reduction and Resilience ↩

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Appendix B: G20 Endorsements of Global Initiatives on Risk Reduction and Resilience ↩

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This page was last updated December 11, 2025

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