UNDRR News

On 22nd until 24th March the 20th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe was held in Strasbourg to discuss issues including City Safety and the ISDR Making cities resilient 'my city is getting ready' world disaster reduction Campaign.

The Thai Government today launched the “One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals” initiative in Bangkok, promising to make safety a priority at 43,004 schools and hospitals. In recent years, intense disasters with increasing frequency has affected Thailand including "one of the worst natural calamities" to hit the country. In October and November 2010, a series of flash floods killed more than a hundred people and affected six million in 38 provinces. Thousands of students were forced to evacuate their schools, with more than a thousand schools reportedly damaged.

Several high-level African delegates will attend the inaugural meeting of the Reconstituted African Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction in Nairobi, Kenya from 29 - 31 March 2011. The meeting follows the endorsement of the Report of the Second African Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction by the Executive Council of the African Union. This inaugural meeting will agree on the Terms of Reference of the Group as well as the Africa position paper to be presented during the Third Session of the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction in May 2011.

Speaking to UN Radio, two of the UN's top officials on disaster reduction weigh in on the devastation caused by an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale that struck northeastern Japan on Friday and triggered a tsunami that engulfed coastal towns and cities along Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima prefectures. In the interviews, they highlighted the importance of disaster risk reduction and Japan's disaster preparedness.

UNISDR welcomes the report of the Multilateral Aid Review (MAR) of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) as an innovative and critical contribution to strengthen the efficiency and effectiveness of international cooperation frameworks for the delivery of aid. The analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the multilateral system is very interesting and reiterates familiar issues, particularly on the perceived weaknesses; some of which require solutions that are not always possible for organizations in isolation.

In an official ceremony today, the Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, and the Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, officially marked their cities’ participation in the United Nations World Disaster Reduction Campaign “Making Cities Resilient – My City is Getting Ready!” which involves over 600 cities worldwide. The Mayor of Milan, too, has officially declared her willingness to join the campaign.

A new report from the United Nations confirms what governments already hear but are slow to believe: that disciplined public sector involvement in “disaster risk reduction” can significantly reduce setbacks brought by hundreds of droughts, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and other hazards that befall the world each year, on average.

In a signing ceremony held in Lami on 8th March 2011, Special Administrator Suva/Lami Mr. Chandu Umaria signed Lami’s Certificate of Commitment to Disaster Resilience for the 2010-2011 World Disaster Reduction Campaign “Making Cities Resilient“. Lami is the first Pacific island city to join the global campaign coordinated by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

Disasters affect men and women differently, and so we will continue to lobby for gender-sensitive vulnerability, risk and capacity assessments. Studies show that women’s vulnerabilities during and after disasters is linked to their role and status in society, making women and children 14 times more likely to die than men during a disaster.

The five largest cities and most important economic centers of Viet Nam pledged to make cities safer against disasters at the second National Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai today. The Forum set a firm plan to establish the National Platform and launched the World Disaster Reduction Campaign “Making Cities Resilient- My City is Getting Ready.”