UNDRR News

The 2nd Steering Committee Meeting of the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign came to a close yesterday in the city of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK, following two days of intense discussions on how urban priorities can be accommodated in the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

Greater Manchester today becomes the first UK city to join the UN’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign and has been recognized as a “Role Model for Total Resilience” because of its focus on implementing the Campaign’s entire ten-point checklist for building resilience to disasters.

The Finnish government has officially accepted the Peer Review report on its implementation of the global blueprint for disaster risk reduction, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) which was adopted in 2005 and is due to be renewed next year at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, in Sendai, Japan.

This week’s European Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction has made a series of recommendations for the Post-2015 Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction in advance of next week’s Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings in Geneva which will produce the first draft.

Efforts to ensure political commitment to a new global agreement on reducing disaster losses have received a major boost as representatives from 40 European countries agreed to a series of sweeping recommendations designed to build resilience to disasters. Europe experienced over 40 major disaster events last year affecting millions. Major flood and hailstorm events generated $25 billion in economic losses.

The vast majority of towns and municipalities in the earthquake-prone Italian Province of Potenza, have joined the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign. Over 10,000 people died and several towns in Potenza were destroyed in the 1857 Basilicata or Great Neapolitan Earthquake which led to significant advances in the study of seismology.

25 June 2014, LONDON – The International Insurance Society today hosted a “Financial and Private Sector Disaster Resilience Global Summit” for 500 insurance and business leaders to discuss how to integrate the business sector and financial system within the new global framework on disaster risk reduction which will succeed the current Hyogo Framework for Action in March, 2015.

President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines has stressed the importance of mounting “a focused international effort to address the threats posed by climate change, and to build communities that are resilient in the face of disaster.”

This week, the city of Cetinje (population: 16,800) became the first city in the Balkan state of Montenegro to join UNISDR’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign.“Reducing disaster risk and adapting to climate change is crucial for the sustainable future of our city and community” said Cetinje Mayor Alexander Bogdanovic, at a signing ceremony. UNISDR representative, Demetrio Innocenti, stated: "Cetinje’s beauty and cultural heritage are priceless and constitute a major economic opportunity given the potential of its tourism industry. It is economically, socially and culturally vital to ensure a disaster and climate resilient future for Cetinje.

The European Commission has adopted a Communication on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), making strong reference to building resilience to disasters and pointing out the need to respond to new challenges that were not sufficiently covered by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as disaster resilience and risk management.The document titled “A Decent Life for All: From Vision to Collective Action” features disaster risk reduction (DRR) as a cross-cutting issue for sustainable development within the suggested targets and priority areas because they can have a “major impact on the economy as well as on well-being and on the security of citizens, and need to be addressed in the framework in a way that does not replicate or interfere with respective international processes and agreements.