UNDRR News

Recently empowered by the Chilean Congress, local government bodies in Chile are using their increased autonomy to boost community resilience and address risk reduction.

Disaster risk reduction was at the top of the agenda today for over 2,000 mayors and municipal leaders in Vera Cruz, Mexico, attending the Conferencia Anual de Municipios 2012 at which the keynote address was delivered by UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström.

The repercussions from the deadly earthquake and tsunami which hit Chile two years ago continue to play out in the country's courts and in expressions of frustration at the pace of reconstruction.

The dynamic new Vice-President of the National Assembly of Panama, Rony Araúz, is emerging as a leading advocate of disaster risk reduction in Central America following a career monitoring the passage of hazardous materials through the Panama Canal.

Climate change was a key driver in 2005 when 168 UN member states agreed on an international blueprint for disaster risk reduction but there is no reference in the Hyogo Framework for Action* to the environmental threat posed to the world’s retreating glaciers by criminal gangs.

Bequia is a delightful link in the chain of islands which make St. Vincent and the Grenadines such an attractive destination for sun worshipping tourists. With a population of 4,300 people and an area of just 18 km2, it is on the frontlines of the unfolding drama of climate change and Small Island Developing States. And, like many small tropical islands during the dry season, Bequia has problems with water supply which global warming threatens to exacerbate.

The Brazilian government has agreed to open a Centre of Excellence for Disaster Risk Reduction, one year after deadly landslides in the state of Rio de Janeiro prompted President Dilma Rousseff to devise plans to improve the country’s disaster readiness.

Some of the biggest names in the U.S. private and public sectors gathered in New York on Wednesday at a Pace University Summit on Resilience to see how best partnerships between these two sectors could be developed to strengthen resilience in cities and communities in light of increasing hazards.

On the occasion of the two-year commemoration of the Haitian earthquake today, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, recognized the significant progress made over the last two years in dealing with the consequences of the disaster which took over 220,000 lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

Eighteen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed to tighten up on school safety while also integrating disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum, following high-level talks on education in Panama City.