UNDRR News

The three-day 4th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, attended by a record 3,500 people and representatives from 172 governments, ended today with a call for "the immediate start of work to develop targets and indicators to monitor the reduction of risk" in the Chair's Summary at the closing plenary.

Sendai City in Japan has been selected to host the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015. The city of one million people in the northern region of Tohoku was one of the hardest hit zones in the March 2011 Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Details were announced today of the 2014 RISK Award -- "Disaster Emergency -- Resilience for the Most Vulnerable" and a call was made for applications for the Award which includes a grant of €100,000 for a project in disaster emergency planning which focuses on the most vulnerable. The deadline for applications is 31 December 2013.

Senior Government officials from around the world today reaffirmed their commitment to disaster risk reduction to save lives and reverse the trend of mounting economic losses caused by impacts from natural disasters and climate change.

City mayors today urged national and international leaders to trust and invest more at the local level to transform rapidly expanding urban areas into safe and resilient 21st century cities.

Since the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, 146 countries have reported on their efforts to implement the sweeping reforms contained in the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) which was adopted by all UN member States in the wake of that catastrophe which took over 200,000 lives.

Young people from around the world yesterday said much more needed to be done to implement the two-year old Children's Charter for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted at the last Global Platform in 2011 in order to create a safer and more resilient world.

Two of the world's most disaster-prone countries, Bangladesh and Brazil, today shared the biennial UN-Sasakawa Award which was presented to the laureates by the Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, in the presence of the sponsor and chairman of the Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa.

Community voices from around the world today urged disaster management and climate change adaptation practitioners to take greater account of indigenous knowledge and expertise in building community resilience to withstand natural hazards.

Representatives from 35 governments who met with business executives and senior experts at the 4th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, have issued a call "to develop nationally agreed standards for hazard risk assessments especially of critical infrastructure (including schools, health centers, electricity and water supply systems, nodal ITC centres, road and transport systems) by 2015."