United Nations Department of Public Information

Building disaster resilience into urban planning will be increasingly crucial as cities continue to burgeon worldwide, said panellists this morning. There was currently more investment in urban areas than at any other time in history, and in some parts of the world cities were becoming more expensive and displacing persons to the peripheries...

The private sector’s potential role in building resilient societies, and especially in repairing vital infrastructure damaged by disasters, was highlighted by several panellists this afternoon at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, which opened here yesterday...

Auditing and regulatory experts today said that accountability is paramount for all actors in disaster risk reduction, from victims and taxpayers to national Governments, international organizations and civil society. The experts were discussing disaster risk management standards and accountability for business and citizens as part of the Global Platform on Disaster Reduction...

This fact sheet is part of the press kit produced for Rio+20 conference. It presents an overview of the situation, key facts, success stories and proposals in order to include disaster resilience in a sustainable development framework. Demonstrating the

'Integrating disaster risk reduction from the beginning, during the planning stage, and taking a consistent approach will ensure the best results,' Susana Malcorra, Chef de Cabinet to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on his behalf as the Assembly held a day-long interactive thematic debate on the subject...

'We need to give higher priority to prevention — preventing conflicts, human rights abuses and man-made and natural disasters. We need to invest in early warning; we must strengthen capacity-building on human rights, humanitarian law and democratic values and practices; and we need to build resilience, ranging from social safety nets and legal protection to national disaster risk-reduction plans'...

'Building codes pay, early warning systems pay, it saves lives. Drills, training, public education and awareness also pay off and save lives,' said the UN disaster risk reduction chief...

'A second great opportunity is prevention. To prevent runaway damage from natural disasters, we must foster better disaster-risk reduction and preparedness'...