UNDRR News

National media organizations play an important role in promoting national disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. They need to know about disaster risk reduction and to establish contact with their national disaster risk reduction representatives who can provide them with accurate and timely information. To support this, UNISDR, Thomson Reuters Foundation, UNRIC and ECHO, are organizing a two-day media training in Brussels from 15 to 16 November 2010 with ten media organizations and national platform representatives from European countries.

High level officials from the UN, African Union Commission (AUC), NEPAD Coordinating and Planning Agency (NPCA), Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and other international, regional and sub-regional organizations will meet in Addis Ababa on 14-15 November for the 11th session of the regional coordination mechanism (RCM- Africa). > View full story

A new joint report from the World Bank and the United Nations says that annual global losses from natural disasters could triple to $185 billion by the end of this century, even without calculating the impact of climate change. Climate change could then add $28-$68 billion more in damages each year from tropical cyclones alone. The report also says that the number of people exposed to storms and earthquakes in large cities could double to 1.5 billion by 2050.

UNISDR is launching a call for "good practices" and lessons learned by cities/local governments in support of the "Making Cities Resilient – My City is Getting Ready!" campaign. Selected examples will be published by the end of 2011, and others will be showcased during the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction on 8-13 May 2011.

Twenty Philippine Governors joined the Making Cities Resilient: My City Is Getting Ready! campaign at the Local Government Unit SUMMIT+3i on “Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation in the Philippines” from 4 to 6 November in Albay. Participants will discuss how climate change adaptation at local government level is critical for meeting the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

The annual report of the Secretary General on "Implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction" is now available in Arabic. The report gives an overview of the global trends in disasters and disaster risks, challenges and opportunities

Officials meeting at the Fourth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction have approved a five-year regional roadmap to establish climate resilient disaster risk management systems by 2015 that will contribute to sustainable development at the regional, national and community levels.

People in the Asia-Pacific region are four times more likely to be affected by natural disasters than those in Africa and 25 times more likely than those in Europe or North America, says a UN report released at the Fourth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR). The region generated one quarter of the world’s GDP, yet it accounted for 85 per cent of deaths and 38 per cent of global economic losses due to natural disasters over the last three decades.

Investors in partnership with UNISDR held an Entrepreneurial Finance Seminar on 25 October to provide Kenyan entrepreneurs with training on capital formation options in the over-the-counter market in the United States. > View full story

Earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China have provided stark reminders of the increasing disaster risk in urban areas. Smaller and more frequent disasters in communities around the world attest to rising vulnerability and insufficient capacity to cope with disaster risk at the local level. The report of the Secretary General provides an overview of progress in the implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.