UNDRR News

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) has called on governments, businesses and communities in island nations to work together to curb the impact of hazards stoked by climate change.

Diplomats and disaster risk reduction experts today began a third and final round of talks to fix benchmarks of success in curbing the impact of natural and man-made hazards through to 2030.

Exactly three years after the country was lashed by the deadly Typhoon Haiyan, the ARISE network in the Philippines yesterday committed to strengthen partnerships with national and local authorities.

Ensuring that children understand hazards is the route to reducing their impacts. Uganda is making disaster risk education part of its curriculum in order to bring up a generation that knows how to deal with the threats that it faces.

Three films of human resilience in an era of increasing disaster risk and a changing climate have scooped the main prizes at a prestigious awards ceremony. The documentaries – from Vietnam, Indonesia and India – were honoured for their insightful journalism and compelling tales of local innovation at the closing of the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction 2016.

The Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction was hailed by the Indian Home Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh, as “a landmark event” as it concluded today with adoption of a clear regional plan to substantially reduce disaster losses by 2030.

Prime Minister Modi set the tone for this Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction when he urged us all to embrace wholeheartedly the spirit of the Sendai Framework. Today when I see the outcomes from the Conference and the scale of your ambition over the next 14 years for implementing the Sendai Framework, I think the Prime Minister can rest assured that his appeal did not fall on deaf ears.

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Robert Glasser, initiated a minute’s silence today in remembrance of all those who have lost their lives in tsunamis as the first World Tsunami Awareness Day was commemorated on the final day of the Asian Ministerial Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction.

One is a Czech model-turned-activist, and the other a student who hails from Spain. Their lives changed forever on 26 December 2004, when they were caught up in the tragedy of the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Both have become tireless campaigners for disaster risk reduction.

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Robert Glasser, today warned against complacency in the face of the global tsunami threat which is often forgotten in parts of the world that have been affected in the distant past. The first ever World Tsunami Awareness Day is tomorrow, 5 November.