UNDRR News

Some 80 plus countries commemorated the UN International Disaster Reduction Day (IDDR 11) yesterday. “This welcome groundswell of support concretely demonstrates the growing importance and awareness of risk reduction around the world,” said UNISDR Chief Margareta Wahlström today.

South Africa’s Western Cape Provincial Government announced this week that it was increasing the budget allocation for safe schools from Rand 19 million to Rand 21 million and is taking steps to incorporate disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum.

The UNISDR Sub-Regional Office in Suva together with its partners, held a Pacific regional celebration of the International Day for Disaster Reduction to highlight the role of children and youth as active partners in disaster risk reduction.

In Vietnam, adults cried as they watched the short film children in their community made about the flash flood that devastated their homes.

国際防災の日（10月13日）国連事務総長メッセージの日本語版です。

The UN office for disaster risk reduction, UNISDR, today marked International Disaster Reduction Day with a call for children and young people to be empowered and engaged in disaster risk reduction as the group most affected by disasters each year.

Bangkok which has so far been spared the heavy flooding affecting one third of Thailand is currently preparing for the worst case scenario.

“Build bridges because every year children miss school in the rainy season when they have to cross gullies, rivers and water channels huge enough to drown them,” a child from Lesotho told the recently launched Children’s Charter on Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, arrived in Myanmar today at the invitation of the government, on a three-day visit during which she will engage with senior Government Ministers on a national action plan for disaster risk reduction and a Disaster Management Law.

When the annual monsoon rains come, 14-year-old Atik worries. As the deputy chief of the children’s council in her home village of Dowan, in Indonesia’s Central Java province she knows,” When it rains heavily for hours, it seems that soil in some parts of this village will shift and cause a landslide.”