UNDRR News

The Government of Tunisia announced that it will establish a National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), a multi-stakeholder national mechanism that will provide coordination and analysis of DRR at different levels in the country. There are now 82 National Platforms worldwide supporting implementation of the priorities outlined in the Hyogo Framework for Action.

The United Nations, European Commission and national authorities have launched a new project in the Western Balkans and Turkey that will reduce disaster risks and increase resilience to climate change.

Major roll-outs of UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient campaign in Austria and Iran were outlined yesterday at the 4th International Disaster and Risk Conference, in Davos, Switzerland, which has brought together experts from around the world.

The flood-prone coastal city of Beira in Mozambique was named today as the winner of the first RISK Award, a collaboration between UNISDR, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Munich Re Foundation and the Global Risk Forum, Davos. The €100,000 prize for project implementation is funded through the Munich Re Foundation.

Even by the standards of one of the world's most disaster-prone countries, the August floods which hit Manila and other parts of the Philippines have been devastating. Latest reports indicate that four million people have been affected and as many as one million people are living with relatives or in evacuation centres.

The Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, Sir John Beddington, recently spoke to UNISDR about how migration triggered by natural hazards is actually taking people into areas of increasing vulnerability.

UNDP Administrator, Helen Clark, said today the agency intends to double its overall support for disaster reduction over the next five years and will add five countries per year to the "growing list of countries on track to becoming champions in disaster resilience."

Mexico is in the grips of one of the worst droughts in 70 years - a catastrophe which has devastated agricultural production for over one year now. According to the National Water Commission the prolonged drought has affected 70 percent of the country and decimated agriculture in the states of Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Durango, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas, among others.

A new study by UNICEF and UNESCO is a timely assessment of just how some countries are faring, or not, with the implementation of disaster risk reduction education seven years after such education was requested by the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA).

Following 12 days of rains brought on by seasonal southwest monsoons, there are signs that the chronic floods which have submerged 50 percent of Manila as well as nearby areas are abating.