UNDRR News

The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, will tomorrow officially recognise the appointment of the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, as the first UNISDR global champion of disaster risk reduction at the 19th ASEAN summit in Bali as the region copes with the impact of record floods.

The flood crisis affecting over eight million people in Thailand will be discussed at the 19th ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) Summit which opened today in Bali, Indonesia.

UNISDR champion Senator Loren Legarda received the Asian Leader Award for Environment Policy, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation last week. The award was given by publishing company Seagull Philippines, which held its 1st Seagull Philippines Asian Leaders Awards ceremony for Excellence, Best Values and Social Responsibility, at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City last Friday.

Countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) have pledged to increase private sector engagement in their disaster resilience agenda, in a year when floods and earthquakes have wiped out assets worth billions of dollars across the region.

Seeking new ways to strengthen community resilience, city officials from Thailand and Viet Nam today began a two-day exchange with counterparts in the Philippines to examine the award-winning “Purok system” used by the city of San Francisco, Philippines, to empower ordinary people to find solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), The World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) are convening the “ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Forum” to help ASEAN Member States build greater financial resilience to natural disasters.

Cyclones, earthquakes, floods and drought combined with poverty have spurred the Myanmar government into complete acceptance of the need for a radical overhaul of its approach to disaster management and risk reduction.

The floods which have affected eight million people across South East Asia, and which now threaten Bangkok, have underlined shortcomings in disaster risk reduction with many children drowning because they cannot swim, and thousands of workers now unemployed because of poorly located manufacturing plants, the Head of the UN’s Bangkok Office for Disaster Reduction, UNISDR, Jerry Velasquez said today.

Earlier today, Thailand’s Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, said it was impossible to protect all of Bangkok from the worst floods in decades, describing the situation as a national crisis.

The annual monsoon season in South East Asia continues to wreak havoc on lives and economies across many parts of the region with Thailand reportedly suffering from the worst floods in 50 years.