UNDRR News

Disaster risk reduction topped the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser who visited the city of Kobe and its Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution. The centre has experienced an increase of 30% in the number of visitors since the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.

UNISDR champion Senator Loren Legarda received the Asian Leader Award for Environment Policy, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation last week. The award was given by publishing company Seagull Philippines, which held its 1st Seagull Philippines Asian Leaders Awards ceremony for Excellence, Best Values and Social Responsibility, at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City last Friday.

A strong push from the UN Environment Programme for green investments to protect key sectors of the economy from crises and shocks has earned praise from private companies keen to reduce disaster risk.

Countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) have pledged to increase private sector engagement in their disaster resilience agenda, in a year when floods and earthquakes have wiped out assets worth billions of dollars across the region.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today announced that the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNISDR, is to work with its partners over the next four years on developing a global disaster risk model which will provide the best information available on likely economic losses as climate change kicks in.

Seeking new ways to strengthen community resilience, city officials from Thailand and Viet Nam today began a two-day exchange with counterparts in the Philippines to examine the award-winning “Purok system” used by the city of San Francisco, Philippines, to empower ordinary people to find solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

The latest edition of the Low Carbon Economy Index finds that the world economy is going backwards rather than forwards in efforts to limit global warming to 2º Celsius as agreed during the Cancun round of climate change talks last year.

Eighteen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed to tighten up on school safety while also integrating disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum, following high-level talks on education in Panama City.

Japan is to hold an international conference to share the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake in the latter half of next year, according to a debate at the United Nations in New York on the latest report of the United Nations Secretary General on Implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), The World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) are convening the “ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Forum” to help ASEAN Member States build greater financial resilience to natural disasters.