UNDRR News

World leaders will gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, next month to focus on the issue of global development financing. The Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) is another key milestone in the post-2015 development agenda aimed at reducing extreme poverty by 2030.

A cholera outbreak in Kenya that is concentrated in the informal settlements shows how entrenched poverty can combine with poor urban planning to breed disasters.

Urban planning is a key element in disaster risk preparedness and community resilience in Africa, say experts.

Experts want gender to feature strongly in the final text of the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction, due to adopted at the looming Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.

Lashed by torrential rains, Malawi and neighbouring countries are in the grip of a major flood crisis, with scores of lives lost, and over 600,000 displaced in Malawi alone.

African youth leaders are taking action to make their communities better informed and prepared to reduce their exposure to the effects of disasters.

The President of the Cape Verde National Civil Protection Service, Arlindo Lima, has warned that the situation on the island of Fogo is likely to get worse in the coming days as volcanic activity continues and lava pours out of the Chã das Caldeiras crater where it has already destroyed two villages.

RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, 14 October 2014 – Senior government figures and several mayors from across South Africa have marked International Day for Disaster Reduction by signing a unique national pledge to implement minimum standards to both engage older persons in disaster risk reduction and to meet their needs.

Africa today became the first world region to make a comprehensive set of recommendations for a new UN global agreement on reducing disaster risk, recognizing that most disasters in Africa are water-related and that efforts are needed to prevent conflict as part of overall efforts to build resilience to disasters.

A disaster-resilient future for Africa will have to take account of the fact that it is the region of the world that will suffer the most from climate change and which struggles the most when it comes to capacity to manage present and future disaster risk, the 5th Africa Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction heard yesterday.