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Ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit, Stephen O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief and Elhadj As Sy, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies call for a global coalition for capacity building, financing of local actors and promotion of leadership of domestic authorities.

A month after a new global plan was adopted to reduce disaster losses at a UN Conference in Japan last year, the 7.8 magnitude Nepal earthquake struck, reminding the world again why action on reducing disaster losses is so critical for sustainable development in low-income countries.

Just as the worst of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa seemed to be over, the mosquito-borne Zika virus has led to the declaration by WHO of a public health emergency of international concern following a steep rise in congenital malformations and neurological complications among new-born children of infected women, writes Robert Glasser, head of UNISDR in an opinion piece on Huffington Post...

The Fire Brigade Employees’ Union (FBEU) has called for a radical overhaul of Australian firefighting, reports Huffington Post..'Fires are becoming harder to fight. The weather is becoming more erratic. The anecdotal view is they are becoming harder to fight and more intense.' says Darin Sullivan, president of the FBEU, 'My union and the majority of firefighters are calling for Australia to take some action on climate change,'...

'2015 has been a formative year for climate change and disaster management efforts', writes Sohara Mehroze in an opinion piece in Huffington Post. 'The Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction was adopted this year, and it culminates with COP 21 - which aims to attain a global climate agreement'... The UN World Conference on Disaster risk reduction took place in Sendai, Japan last March, which brought together government and civil society representatives from around the globe to discuss ways to achieve sustainable development by managing disaster and climate risks better. And UNFCCC's 21st International Conference of Parties (COP 21) is currently taking place in Paris with the aim of reaching a binding agreement for reducing emissions and keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees.

'As evidenced by a series of incidents in recent years, extreme weather events, environmental degradation and major seismic events can directly impact the safety and security of nuclear installations. Moreover, a nuclear war could lead to a rapid and prolonged drop in average global temperatures and significantly disrupt the global climate for years to come,' writes Jakob von Uexkull, founder of World Future Council, in an opinion in Huffington Post...

Margareta Wahlstrom, Special Representative of the Secretary General on Disaster Risk, talked with Ebenezar Wikina on this week's UN General Assembly, the work of the UN since its inception 70 years ago and the Sendai Framework and its relation to the SDGs. 'Risk Reduction is not a stand-alone issue, you cannot achieve sustainable development if you don't recognize and manage risk' said Wahlstrom...

In an opinion piece in Huffington Post, Sherry-Lea Bloodworth-Boto writes on the activities of the Architects Foundation 'to create a network of design studios throughout the US dedicated to informing and educating local stakeholders about resilient building and planning practices - all designed to help local communities prepare for the next disaster, whether natural or systemic'...