UNDRR News

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the ISDR secretariat at the United Nations (ISDR secretariat), and the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) convened a joint a workshop in Dakar, Senegal, where over 40 participants from 16 countries in West and North Africa discussed how disaster risk reduction could be integrated into the joint UN development programming framework of their respective countries.

Maputo (Mozambique) and Overstrand Municipality (South Africa) are the latest local governments to join the World Disaster Reduction Campaign “Making Cities Resilient - My city is getting ready!” The signing ceremony took place yesterday at the campaign launch held by the United Nations secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) with its partners UNHABITAT at the Planning Africa 2010 conference, in Durban, South Africa. > View full story

Mexico City, a high-risk mega city, expects to train 10,000 civil servants on their responsibilities and options to consistently help reduce risks facing their city. The training is sponsored locally and supported by the UNISDR regional office and the Capacity Development for Disaster Reduction Initiative (CADRI) of the UN. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, known for his commitment to disaster risk reduction and improving the city's resilience to climate change, made an opening statement where he stressed the importance of training decision makers and technical staff from all the City dependencies and departments, especially those that have a multiplying effect on decisions and plans. > Click for links to news coverage

Some 150 participants from local governments around the world, national representatives, academia, civil society and private sector exhibitors met in the “Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction”, held in Shanghai from 28-31 July 2010. The Forum was held within the context of the global campaign “Making Cities Resilient - My city is getting ready!” and the Shanghai EXPO 2010 “Better city - better life”. An exciting program, with plenary presentations, working groups and visit to the Shanghai EXPO 2010 permitted participants to learn, exchange experience and design ways forward to improve disaster resilience in urban areas. > View full story

Chennai, one of the first Indian cities to participate in Making Cities Resilient campaign, has launched its own “Safer Chennai Campaign” on 19 August 2010. At the launching, the “Chennai Zone Profile” report was released, which was undertaken in a multilateral effort between the Corporation of Chennai, the University of Madras and Kyoto University. > View full story

On 25 to 26 August, the UNISDR Regional Office for Africa is holding a pilot workshop on “Training of Trainers” in the Rift Valley Province to test a toolkit to “train trainers” in disaster risk reduction. “The outcome of this training will create a super highway for spreading hazard and disaster risk reduction information to local communities, thereby increasing their knowledgebase and consequently their resilience to natural disasters,” said Pedro Basabe, Head of the UNISDR Regional Office for Africa. Expected to attend are 30 Disaster Risk Reduction platform members from the provinces, and five regional participants from Burundi, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Kenya. > View full story

Over 13,000 schools and hospitals have joined the “One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals Campaign” since its national launch in Indonesia on July 29, quadrupling in the space of one week from 3,156 schools to 13,500. The number of hospitals that joined rose from 105 to 133. With the support of the local communication and information authority in Ciwidey, West Java Province, organizers set up computers where participants made online pledges.

The United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) conducted an audit of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction secretariat (UNISDR), releasing a report on 28 July. To conduct the audit, OIOS held a series of

Months before the damaging quake of 12 January hit Port-au-Prince and neighbouring cities, human rights lawyer William O'Neill -- one-time senior advisor on human rights in the UN Mission in Kosovo, former chief of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda, and who once led the legal department of the UN/OAS Mission in Haiti -- had urged international donors to empower Haitians to demand that elected officials “stop squabbling and start focusing on protecting their constituents’ lives.” > View full story

The European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) organized a special event on European National Platforms in collaboration with UNISDR Europe, the Council of Europe European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement (EUR-OPA), the European Commission and UNESCO. The goal was to discuss experiences from European National Platforms (NPs). These need to be built on national and local conditions, cultures, and structures, should reflect the needs of their constituencies and can serve as laboratories of ideas to promote innovation for DRR initiatives. The event introduced the newly established European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction, which brings together National Platforms, Hyogo Framework for Action Focal Points and regional organizations to jointly reduce vulnerabilities in Europe.