UNDRR News

Following a recent decision by its Cabinet to buy land in Fiji as 'climate change insurance' for its population, Kiribati President, Anote Tong has called on the international community to address the effects of climate change that could wipe out the entire Pacific archipelago.

Inspired by UNISDR’s flagship 'Making Cities Resilient' campaign, the European Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency is to boost disaster preparedness in European cities by turning higher education institutes into 'reliable partners to reduce society’s vulnerability to hazards.'

The private sector is making significant contributions to the delivery of reliable and safe water worldwide, providing services to around 160 million people in emerging markets, according to a report from World Bank Group's private arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

One year ago, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami took 13,007 lives in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima -- the country's three most affected prefectures; 54 percent of those fatalities were women and girls.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today paid tribute to the resilience of the Japanese people as they prepare to mark the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, marked International Women's Day today with a call to governments in the world's most disaster-prone countries to "empower girls and women through education and access to resources as part of building resilience to disasters at community level.

Almost one year ago Minami Sanriku was one of many coastal towns in the Northern Miyagi Prefecture that was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Few people outside Italy are aware that six seismologists and a government official are on trial in the small city of L'Aquila. But the story has implications for scientists, engineers, administrators, and legal systems far beyond Italy's borders.

The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction which the Japanese government is proposing to host in 2015.

UNICEF'S flagship report, The State of the World's Children 2012: Children In An Urban World, urges governments to put children at the heart of urban planning and finds that for millions of children urban poverty is intensified by exposure to cyclones, floods, mudslides, earthquakes and other disasters.