UNDRR News

Early next week in Bangkok, Asian and Pacific media and 10 UN agencies will participate in a special pre-session of a media summit organized by the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (APIBD), to review regional progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

UNISDR joined forces with a leading university yesterday to urge Manila’s business community to reduce its disaster risk and to develop business continuity plans which take account of the capital city’s extreme exposure to earthquakes and typhoons. Disasters cost the country a record $615 million last year.

Top UN disaster risk reduction official, Margareta Wahlström arrives in Manila Philippines tomorrow for five-day visit during which she will meet with donors, the private sector, mayors and government officials to further push for more concrete disaster reduction actions to protect more communities and assets from future disasters.

Nineteen year old Ien Sophorn heads a children's council in Cambodia that works with the Srei Nam Provincial Committee of Disaster Management to raise awareness on climate change adaptation.

At the start of a week-long trip to Cambodia, the UN's senior official for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlström, met yesterday with a 64-year-old grandmother who saved the lives of her five grandchildren during last year's heavy monsoon rains.

As she wrapped up a five-day visit to Viet Nam, Margareta Wahlström, the top UN disaster risk reduction Official, commended the Government on the ambitious Community-based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) Programme and the comprehensive new National Climate Change Strategy.

UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström, today visited parts of Vietnam's Mekong Delta which were affected by storm surges last October and are most vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Following a massive earthquake earlier today in the Indian Ocean and the threat of a tsunami, Indonesian President and UNISDR Global Disaster Risk Reduction Champion, Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, told the press, "Our early warning system is working well". There were no tsunamis in Banda Aceh or other places which were hard hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Threatened by increasing and lethal seasonal floods, the 500-year old Malaysian port city of Melaka is making considerable efforts to reduce the disaster risks that it currently faces from such climate related catastrophic events.

A visit to a disaster-resilient habitat in Bangladesh has prompted UNISDR Chief Margareta Wahlström to acknowledge the south Asian country as leading developing nations in the global fight against climate change impacts.