On the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, UN Special Representative to the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction Margareta Wahlsrom said, “[t]hanks to a combination of better organization, coordination, response and preparedness [between the public and private sectors], improved weather forecasting, early warnings, public education, and media engagement, there has been a reduction in the number of people dying in such [disasters],” she said.
“That’s the good news. But risk and opportunity are two sides of the same coin. Economic development and population growth are driving up our exposure to risk at an unprecedented rate and this is reflected in the escalation of economic losses this century, calculated by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction to be in the region of $2 trillion,” Wahlstrom said.
Governments will meet at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, March 2015 in Sendai, Japan, to adopt a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.