UNDRR News

The latest news from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the lead UN agency for the coordination of disaster risk reduction.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa

Participants at the Uganda Resilience Dialogue in Kampala (Photo: UNISDR)
Update
Without addressing the growing levels of disaster and climate risk, the Government of Uganda fears that 43% of the population could regress into poverty.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Head of UNISDR, Margareta Wahlstrom, addressing the opening session of the Understanding Risk Forum in Addis Ababa yesterday. (Photo: UNISDR)
Update
Delegates from over 30 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa along with development partners, academics and civil society are meeting at the launch of the Understanding Risk and Finance Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Local residents clear a trash-strewn drainage ditch in Nkolbikok, in Cameroon's capital Yaoundé, where the community has mobilized to reduce flood risk (Photo: Mairie de Yaoundé 6)
Update
Residents of a flood-prone community in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé are deploying local knowledge to curb the risk of disasters and epidemics by tackling the trash that blocks drainage ditches.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Ms. Lydia Manyi, a subsistence farmer in Akum, northwestern Cameroon, uses traditional knowledge to protect her crop from drought. (Photo: Kingsley Nfor/UNISDR)
Update
Farmers in northwestern Cameroon are deploying traditional knowledge to boost the survival of their crops, thereby curbing the risk of disasters posed by increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Local government officials inspect the scene of a 2013 landslide disaster in Uganda. (Photo: Denis Olaka/Uganda)
Update
The Government of Uganda is training its military and police officers in disaster preparedness in anticipation of the effects of El Niño-enhanced rains over the mid-September 2015 to January 2016 period.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
A flooded church in Bangula, Nsanje District, southern Malawi, in January this year. (Photo: Arjen van der Merwe/UNICEF)
Update
MAPUTO, 7 September 2015 – African leaders and experts on disaster risk are moving ahead on detailed planning of implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the new global agreement on reducing disaster losses and a key pillar of the post-2015 Development Agenda.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Insurance payouts can protect those with low incomes against specific perils that are insured  (Photo: Karel Prinsloo/IRIN)
Update
Improved access to insurance can boost the resilience of vulnerable communities to recurrent disasters such as droughts and floods in Sub-Saharan Africa.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Kenya's Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government, Ambassador Dr. Monica Juma (left) and Ms. Maria-Threase Keating, Country Director UNDP Kenya (Photo: UNDP Kenya).
Update
The Government of Kenya and its partners are engaging to create an enabling environment for implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a 15-year global plan to curb deaths and economic losses caused by natural and man-made hazards.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Cameroon's capital Yaoundé is building a network of drainage canals to curb flood risk (Photo: UNISDR)
Update
Recovering from floods that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands in June and July, Cameroon is working to rein in risk in its fast-growing urban centres.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Building community resilience to hazards is a critical issue in Zimbabwe (Photo: IRIN)
Update
Zimbabwe is working to build its communities’ capacity to understand and reduce disaster risk, in a country often confronted by floods or droughts, but poverty and unemployment can make action a challenge.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa

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