Press release

France enacted a major 11 day flood preparedness and response exercise in March, just over two months before it was hit by severe floods.

The head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Robert Glasser, today congratulated the Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, and his government for producing the country’s first ever National Disaster Management Plan.

A major global network launches today at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul to facilitate business engagement in crisis situations through pre-positioning supplies, meeting humanitarian needs and providing resources, knowledge and expertise to disaster prevention.

The Bangladesh Cyclone Preparedness Programme proved its value again this weekend as 500,000 people were evacuated to safety ahead of Cyclone Roanu. UNISDR Chief, Mr. Robert Glasser, is calling for greater investment in disaster risk reduction at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.

The World Humanitarian Summit opens on Monday. The Head of UNISDR, Mr. Robert Glasser, is calling for a shift from managing disasters to managing disaster risk if the world is to reduce the numbers of people displaced by disasters.

With just ten days to go to the World Humanitarian Summit, new figures on internally displaced people show that natural hazards including severe weather events are displacing millions of people every year.

The head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Robert Glasser, today marked the anniversary of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake which struck Nepal last year with a call for greater investment in resilient infrastructure if the death toll from future earthquakes is to be reduced.

UNISDR chief, Mr. Robert Glasser, calls on signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate to go beyond their existing commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the world is to avoid catastrophic future weather events.

Hundreds of people are dead or missing as a result of a series of earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador in recent days. Reducing earthquake risk is an important objective of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction says UNISDR chief Mr. Robert Glasser.

Representatives of UN Member States were informed today in Geneva that the 5th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction will take place in Cancun, Mexico, in May 2017. It is held every two years and is the largest gathering of its kind. The next Global Platform will focus on implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction which was adopted on this day last year at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.