UNDRR News

The Mayor of Bonn, Jürgen Nimptsch, who helped launch the "Making Cities Resilient" campaign two years ago is now urging mayors around the world to get involved in the UNISDR-led consultations taking place on a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

A new survey by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, shows that 68% of cities are pursuing adaption planning for climate change but "only 7 per cent of cities surveyed believe that their national governments fully understand the realities of adaptation planning at the local level."

Addressing city leaders at the 2012 Resilient Cities Congress, the UN's top disaster risk reduction official Margareta Wahlström today launched a new phase of the Making Cities Resilient campaign which now includes 1,020 cities around the globe.

The UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlström, has urged governments to commit resources to building national disaster loss data bases so they can better target spending on infrastructure to avoid recurring losses and damages.

Weak disaster preparedness and recovery planning in two of the world's most disaster-prone countries were discussed over four days this week by government officials, mayors, local government representatives and international risk management experts in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, as they seek to develop national disaster recovery plans for Honduras and neighboring El Salvador.

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.

UNISDR joined forces with a leading university yesterday to urge Manila’s business community to reduce its disaster risk and to develop business continuity plans which take account of the capital city’s extreme exposure to earthquakes and typhoons. Disasters cost the country a record $615 million last year.

UNISDR today backed a newly launched project from the European Commission, Adaptation Strategies for European Cities, designed to provide capacity building and support for European cities in developing and implementing an adaptation strategy for climate change.

This Saturday, from drought-stricken Mongolia to Himalayan communities threatened by glacial melt, Climatedots.org will bring people together to hold rallies and remind everyone of the extreme weather events that are happening in their communities because of climate change.

"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.