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Displaying 15 of about 527 resultsGENEVA, 28 December 2011 – When a city joins the “Making Cities Resilient” campaign, the media gets very active, explained Piyush Ranjan Rout, co-founder and Executive Director of the Local Governments Network, a non-government organization in Bhubaneswar, India.
“They see that a city has joined the campaign and begin asking, ‘But what are they doing?’…
GENEVA, 27 December 2011 – A week after Tropical Storm Sendong hit the Philippines, aid agencies are focusing attention on an estimated 14,000 children who make up about a third of displaced persons in evacuation centres, including those separated from their families.
Children who are left to cope with disasters on their own face a range of risks, said…
GENEVA, 26 December 2011 – The Dead Sea rift, which separates the African and Asian plates, is the deepest and most deadly fault line in the Middle East, making its way from Ethiopia up into southern Lebanon and the country’s eastern Bekaa valley.
An estimated 40,000 people from Beirut and Damascus died in a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 1759. Experts pr…
GENEVA, 19 December 2011 - The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today extended her sympathy to the people of Mindanao in the Philippines, following the great loss of life resulting from Typhoon Sendong.
The UNISDR Chief, Wahlström, said: “There are many lessons to be learned about risk manag…
DURBAN, 8 December 2011 - The President of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, told a major forum at the COP17 talks in Durban yesterday that ”failing to fund climate change is failing to fund poverty reduction.”
The AfDB Head emphasized that rich countries urgently need to address the issue of carbon taxation to scale-up climate funds.
Afr…
DURBAN, 7 December 2011 - UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström, told an exclusive gathering of 35 eminent scientists and politicians from around the world at the COP 17 in Durban that "there is a huge need to translate the best science on climate change into practical action."
Speaking on behalf of the disaster risk reduction community, she told the High-…
DURBAN, 2 December 2011 - South African President, Jacob Zuma, borrowed the UNISDR slogan “invest today for a safer tomorrow” when he spoke today at the opening of the Durban Local Government Convention which aims to develop an Adaptation Charter this weekend which will feed into the high-level segment of the UNFCCC-COP17 climate change negotiations.
P…
GENEVA, 12 December 2011 - Disaster risk is now a key factor influencing the way corporations look at living standards, particularly when structuring compensation packages for expatriate employees.
According to Slagin Parakatil, a Senior Researcher at Mercer, “Companies need to keep on top of current developments to ensure that their compensation packa…
GENEVA, 28 November 2011 - It's one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Over the last twenty years a yearly average of some four million people have been affected by disasters in the Philippines each year and over 33,000 people have lost their lives in 363 major reported events.
Most recently, back-to-back typhoons combined with monsoon…
GENEVA, 17 November 2011 - 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.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, following a tour of the flood-affected areas yesterday, said he was told by Prime Minister,…
GENEVA, 14 November 2011 – 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…
By Dizery Salim
GENEVA, 10 November 2011 – 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.
Between 1970 and 2009, over 32,000 schools in South America were damaged or destro…
By Yuki Matsuoka
SENDAI, 24 October 2011 - Four student representatives from Kobe University, Bukkyo University and Tohuku University announced a ‘Youth Declaration’ during United Nations Day celebrations in Sendai City to highlight the commitment and active participation of youth in building disaster resilient communities.
The students said the dec…
Seismic risk has taken on a different meaning this week with the trial opening in Italy of six scientists charged with failing to predict the L’Aquila earthquake that killed 309 people in 2009 and left 70,000 people homeless. The scientists and one official are charged with manslaughter.
The trial puts under the spotlight one of the most difficult area…
By David Singh
BAMAKO, 19 September: Last Friday over 50 African Ministers of the Environment attending the Fourth Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) adopted a declaration endorsing an ‘African Common Position’ as the basis for negotiations by African States at the next round of UN Climate Change negotiatio…