UNDRR News

The largest UN summit ever organized closes today with an urgent worldwide call for accelerated implementation of the international blueprint for disaster risk reduction agreed by all UN member States seven years ago.

A meeting of 1,000 business executives gathered at Rio+20 heard a passionate plea for resilience from Aris Papadopoulos, CEO of Titan America, a large cement manufacturer, who is also chairman of UNISDR's Private Sector Advisory Group.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, has just visited the site of a major reconstruction programme which is about to start in the earthquake-devastated centre of Christchurch, New Zealand.

Mayors from across the disaster-affected island of Mindanao are to petition the President of the Philippines, Benigno C. Aquino Jr., to allow the use of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund for prevention and mitigation activities at local level as part of a nine-point plan of action agreed at the weekend.

"Cities and Flooding: A Guide to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management for the 21st Century" has just been published by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery.

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.

A new guide launched at the WMO HQ this week warns that urban flooding is "becoming more dangerous and more costly to manage because of the sheer size of the population exposed within urban settlements."

The UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, and HE Yoichi Otabe, the Japanese Ambassador to the International Organizations in Geneva, announced today the start of consultations on a new international blueprint for reducing disaster losses in advance of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction which the Japanese government is proposing to host in 2015.

Disaster risk reduction was at the top of the agenda today for over 2,000 mayors and municipal leaders in Vera Cruz, Mexico, attending the Conferencia Anual de Municipios 2012 at which the keynote address was delivered by UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström.

An insightful new report on the 2010 Haiti earthquake offers a scathing critique of an international community which "has much to learn from the response in Haiti where it has shown an ability to repeat its errors and shortcomings from past disasters."