UNDRR News

Scientists can, and should, play a greater role in the international effort to reduce the prevalence and impact of disasters, Margareta Wahlström, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNISDR told a conference.

The European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) today presented the mayor of the Spanish town of Lorca with the Damir Čemerin award for his work in caring for the elderly, and promoting disaster reduction awareness, following a devastating earthquake in 2011.

Host Spain told the 5th annual European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR) today that it had a great opportunity to influence the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

Following devastating floods and landslides earlier this year affecting over one million people, a major regional insurance conference opens today in Belgrade to highlight the benefits that disaster risk financing can bring to a region where there is a growing culture of disaster risk reduction through implementation of the priorities laid out in the Hyogo Framework for Action.

The 2nd Steering Committee Meeting of the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign came to a close yesterday in the city of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK, following two days of intense discussions on how urban priorities can be accommodated in the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

Greater Manchester today becomes the first UK city to join the UN’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign and has been recognized as a “Role Model for Total Resilience” because of its focus on implementing the Campaign’s entire ten-point checklist for building resilience to disasters.

The Finnish government has officially accepted the Peer Review report on its implementation of the global blueprint for disaster risk reduction, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) which was adopted in 2005 and is due to be renewed next year at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, in Sendai, Japan.

This week’s European Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction has made a series of recommendations for the Post-2015 Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction in advance of next week’s Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings in Geneva which will produce the first draft.

Efforts to ensure political commitment to a new global agreement on reducing disaster losses have received a major boost as representatives from 40 European countries agreed to a series of sweeping recommendations designed to build resilience to disasters. Europe experienced over 40 major disaster events last year affecting millions. Major flood and hailstorm events generated $25 billion in economic losses.

The vast majority of towns and municipalities in the earthquake-prone Italian Province of Potenza, have joined the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign. Over 10,000 people died and several towns in Potenza were destroyed in the 1857 Basilicata or Great Neapolitan Earthquake which led to significant advances in the study of seismology.