UNDRR News

This year's run of disaster events worldwide confirms the long term trend of the last forty years which has seen a doubling in the number of recorded extreme weather events which now regularly account for 90% of disasters caused by natural hazards notably floods, storms, drought, landslides and wildfires.

Science and technology experts in the Arab States pledge to support governments to develop DRR strategies based on data at a meeting of the Regional Science and Technology Action Group in Lebanon.

Damage to critical infrastructure is escalating the global cost of extreme weather events, but countries in Asia and the Pacific are suffering inordinately as the level and intensity of disaster events across the region continually raises the bar for resilience. The construction industry and those with planning oversight must therefore not ignore good practices.

Nominations are now open for the 2019 Risk Award to be awarded to an individual or organization for outstanding recognized action that contributes to building the resilience of costal nations and communities which are particularly exposed to extreme storms, erosion, sea level rise and environmental changes.

Extreme weather was seen as the most prominent risk in the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Risks Report. There are therefore strong economic, financial, legal, reputational and regulatory reasons for building business resilience, not least of which include better performance, credit ratings, and protection gap mitigation, among other benefits.

Angola hosts a five-day risk assessment workshop in the capital Luanda where participants overwhelmingly recognised the importance of incorporating resilience in Angola's development plans.

In the context of revising the fatalities for Hurricane Maria, the Governor of Puerto Rico has acknowledged that the island was not as prepared as it could have been for the storm.

The second phase of the online monitoring system for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, allowing customized targets and indicators, is now live and available to member states.

Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan share significant progress on their path to developing disaster risk reduction strategies while Afghanistan presents a fast-track solution that they hope can be a model for other countries in the region.

With the World Bank estimating that disasters cost the global economy $520 billion annually while pushing 26 million people into poverty, reducing disaster risk is a cross-cutting issue for all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 1, on the eradication of poverty in all its forms everywhere.