UNDRR News

The UK has become the first country to undergo a peer review to assess its progress in implementing the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), the world's first comprehensive agreement on disaster risk reduction, adopted in 2005 following the Indian Ocean tsunami.

UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the European Union's newly announced strategy on adaptation to climate change and stated: "The adoption of this new strategy is a major incentive for European states to step up their efforts for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

Five years after energy black outs and major floods exposed serious weaknesses in the city’s infrastructure and services, the Spanish city of Barcelona was recognized today by the United Nations as a role model for urban resilience in recognition of its efforts to reduce the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and services.

UNISDR Chief Margareta Wahlström today participated in the launch of a National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bosnia and Herzegovina where over 400,000 people have been affected by floods and drought since the beginning of the century, taking a major toll on the country's economic development.

Italy has moved to empower its leaders to make better informed decisions to reduce the country's overall disaster risk.

In 2014 Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, Italy’s biggest public works project which began nine years ago is scheduled to begin reducing the flood risks faced by the population of Venice each year. Venice stretches across numerous islands in the Venice Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea. At high tide, parts of the city are flooded. Rising sea levels and groundwater pumping are causing the city to sink.

The Italian Government is urgently seeking EUR 40 billion over the next 15 years for flood prevention following a week of heavy rains that began on 10 November in the north and then wreaked havoc in Umbria and Tuscany in central Italy.

There are strong links between climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) across several European countries according to the results of a survey presented by a Working Group on Climate Change Adaptation, chaired by Norway, at the European Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction in Croatia this week.

Details of the first-ever peer review of a country implementing the world's first agreement on disaster risk reduction, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), were presented today on the final day of the European Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction in Croatia.

The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today urged other countries to follow the example of Croatia in recognising individual efforts to raise awareness of disaster risk in their own communities.