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Displaying 630 of about 695 resultsThree weeks after the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the World Conference on Disaster Reduction opened this morning here to address the critical need of better preparing communities when faced by natural hazards.
Just ten years ago, on 17 January 1995, the city of Kobe was struck by a huge earthquake that killed 6,433 people and injured more than 40,000 people in 20 seconds. The earthquake was a traumatic experience for Japan and its people who realized too late that they were not prepared for such a massive quake.
“The talks that will take place next week in Buenos Aires on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, will be an important step forward,” says Sálvano Briceño, Director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction secretariat. “Delegates and ministers from all over the world will speak about the source of the prob…
The United Nations General Assembly today adopted a resolution announcing the convening of a World Conference on Disaster Reduction, hosted by the Government of Japan at Kobe, Hyogo from 18 to 22 January 2005.
Hosted by the Government of Colombia in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), the Regional Platform will represent an opportunity for governments, the private sector, civil society and other actors in the Americas to exchange experiences regarding the implementation of the Regional Action Plan, agreed in March…
The conference is a joint yearly policy event of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) focused on disaster risk reduction at the local and regional level in Europe.
The leading topic of the 2017 joint event is "Towards reducing the number of affected people" (Sendai Target B)…
As a special media event at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recorded a one-hour ‘as live’ BBC World Debate titled Prevent or React.
Nik Gowing, a senior BBC World presenter, anchored the event, sparking a lively dialogue between the panellists and the audience. The panellists were:
Ar…
The final version of the Chair's Summary includes comments expressed in plenary during the closing ceremony.
It also reflects written comments received following the Chair's invitation to submit additional remarks by 8 July 2009.
> View Chair's Summary
The swarms of migratory locusts that are invading various African countries were anticipated as far back as last December. How could we have avoided the devastation experienced in northern Africa due to the plague?
We knew that the abundant rain that fell in the Sahel following the last rainy season would generate conditions favourable for locusts to…
UN News Service. Ahead of tomorrow's address to the Economic and Social Council by former United States President Bill Clinton, United Nations Special Envoy overseeing recovery efforts from December's devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has issued his recommendations on how national, global and regional responses to natural di…
Leaders of Indonesia's Simeulue community received a prestigious U.N. award here for saving tens of thousands of lives during the Dec. 26 tsunami. Thanks to faith in their own knowledge of how the sea behaves and the reaction of buffaloes ahead of the tsunami, this community of some 80,500 people fled the shore for nearby hills on that fateful Sunday mo…
In the case of last night’s earthquake, tsunami alerts were given after 40 minutes of the quake by the Japan Meteorology Agency to 6 Indian Ocean countries including India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Tourists were evacuated from risk prone areas in Thailand, while people left their homes in Sri Lanka and India and moved to safer ground. The hig…
“Flooding is already on the rise due to increasing population living in flood plains, and climate change will make floods more frequent and severe, with a particular impact on deltas. The recent floods in Bangladesh, Nepal and India are glimpses of a future that we need to start adapting to now,” says Salvano Briceño, Director of the UNISDR in Geneva, t…
Drought and unsustainable water management have been key contributing factors to the global food crisis. In turn, managing drought risk to prepare for the increasing drought impact of climate change, is a crucial part of addressing the food crisis long term.
Hundreds of hospitals and heath facilities are destroyed or damaged every year by disasters caused by natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes and floods. Millions of people are left without emergency care during and after disasters when hospitals and health facilities fail to function.