UNDRR News

The 130th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union has concluded by urging its 164 member Parliaments to enhance their oversight role in reducing the impact and risk of disasters and “to take immediate action to review existing legislation related to disaster risk reduction.” The Assembly adopted a resolution on risk resilient development which stresses that “reducing disaster risk and protecting people’s lives are the legal responsibility of all public representatives.”

This time two years ago half of Albania was covered in snow and the country appealed for international assistance. The country and the capital Tirana (pop. 418,000) also lives with the threats of earthquakes, floods, heat waves and drought.

Parliamentarians from across the world are participating this week in a wide-ranging debate on disaster risk at the 130th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) which is set to adopt a ground-breaking resolution on risk-resilient development tomorrow.

A new global capacity building initiative to strengthen resilience of cities around the world was launched today.

A leading member of UNISDR’s global private sector partnership is rehousing 1,000 families badly affected by Typhoon Haiyan in new communities that are designed to have soul and safety in equal measure.

Bangkok/Geneva, 13 March 2014 – Some 3,000 experts including government ministers from 50 Asian countries are to meet in Bangkok, to discuss the disaster-prone region’s final inputs into a new global agreement on disaster risk reduction to replace the existing Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA)...

Three years on, the pain has not diminished. Today, the whole of Japan is remembering the day of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. The confirmed death toll stands at 15,884 with 2,633 missing and 267,000 people are living as evacuees.

GENEVA, 11 March 2014 – The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) is working with IBM (NYSE: IBM), and global planning, design and engineering firm AECOM to measure cities’ resilience to disasters.

An inclusive recovery effort in the aftermath of the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines is providing a global example of how to build community resilience ahead of next year’s World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Philippines Climate Change Commissioner, Yeb Saño, believes the post-2015 international framework for disaster risk reduction will grasp the opportunity to “think and act differently”.