UNDRR News

Several hundred government and civil society representatives from over 30 countries will gather this week in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil to review progress in the Americas on reducing exposure to disaster risk.

The launch of a new satellite to conduct ‘health checks’ on some of the earth’s most vulnerable and exposed regions marks a new era of disaster risk monitoring.

Australia’s Emergency Media and Public Affairs (EMPA) organization was born out of a desire to share lessons learned after Cyclone Larry in 2006 and it has been doing that every year since in unique style through its annual conferences.

Following on a statement by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that “economic losses are out of control and can only be reduced in partnership with the private sector,” the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) today launched the R!SE Initiative to mainstream disaster risk management into corporate planning and investment decision-making.

The worst flooding since records began 120 years ago hit Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina over the weekend, when three months' worth of rain fell on the region, bursting river banks and revealing areas at risk that need to be addressed.

Qatar is taking major steps to develop a national plan for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and recovery to address future disaster challenges, improve the coordination and determine key actions.

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.

For the first time, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) held a special session on private sector contributions to the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction at the European Business Summit. UNISDR’s session, "Reducing Risks in post-2015: Contribution of the Private Sector to Building Resilience to Disasters", addressed three themes that are fundamental to the private sector: Business Opportunity, Business Continuity Management, and Access to Risk Information and Resilience Solutions. Specifically, the discussion focused on how to capitalize on and optimize incentives for disaster resilient business practices and identifying investment opportunities.

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.

From school to university education, from early warning to data collection, and from national development plans to community-based participation, Ethiopia has made solid gains in implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action, the global agreement on disaster risk reduction adopted in 2005.