UNDRR News

The new Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union is pressing ahead with plans to strengthen measures across the 28 EU Member States to include persons with disabilities in disaster risk management activities.

Battered by repeated flooding for the best part of a decade, European governments have stepped up efforts to stem the economic and human impact.

Two capital cities, Tbilisi and Bishkek, are among eight towns and cities from Central Asia and the Caucasus, joining UNISDR’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign in the new year.

The draft programme for the first global conference on disasters in ten years has been published by UNISDR ahead of negotiations next week in Geneva on a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction, the first of three interlocking international agreements expected this year.

Turkey was yesterday praised as an emerging leader in disaster risk reduction as it marked the 5th anniversary of the creation of AFAD, the national disaster and emergency management authority under the direct control of the Prime Minister’s office.

The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 was the springboard for an international accord on reducing disaster risks, the Hyogo Framework for Action, which was adopted just weeks later.

Accounting for disaster losses in Serbia gained considerable ground at a special training event focusing on how to use DESINVENTAR as an effective tool to support decision-making about investments on prevention measures.

A decade on from the Indian Ocean Tsunami, lessons have been learned and applied across the region. For the upscale Le Meridien Phuket Beach Resort, disaster preparedness was the watchword even before the tragedy, with resilience seen as part and parcel of good business.

It’s exactly ten years since the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck countries across the region, claiming 227,00 lives and leaving communities reeling.

The ranks of UNISDR’s Private Sector Partnership (PSP) have swollen in Japan thanks to the admission of nine new companies and a business federation, the Keidanren, which represents more than 1,300 firms and 112 business associations. In addition, more than 10 companies are poised to join.