United Nations News Centre

'True resilience comes from strong bonds among countries and communities. The UN is committed to strengthening these bonds with a unified Plan of Action. Let us act in a spirit of global solidarity to make our world safer and more prosperous for all,' said Mr. Ban in opening remarks to the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction...

'After three years of consultation on a post-2015 framework which updates the current Hyogo Framework for Action, there is general agreement that we must move from managing disasters to managing disaster risk,' Margareta Wahlström, head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), said on the eve of the gathering.

Spotlighting the positive actions of women in planning and decision-making to make their communities safer before, during and after disasters strike, senior United Nations, Government and civil society representatives today emphasized that risk reduction efforts can never be fully effective or sustainable if the needs and voices of women are ignored...

'What is left for Member States and countries now, is to find a common formula for the terms of international cooperation on financing, on how to formulate a common global commitment. But also of course the achievement of sustainable development goals and how to deal with climate adaptation,' said Margareta Wahlström, the head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)...

'One important lesson from 2014 is that end-to-end early warning systems save lives,' said Shamika Sirimanne, Director of ESCAP’s Disaster Risk Reduction Division. According to the report, lessons from 2014 clearly show that building resilience remains a key priority in protecting lives and assets in the Asia and the Pacific...

'In Asia, where 80 per cent of the world's natural disasters are concentrated, the number of people directly affected has dropped, decade-by-decade, by almost one billion, owing to measures like the Indian Ocean early warning system'...

'It is important to remember distant events because a short memory is the enemy of disaster management,' Ms Wahlström said as she congratulated the Japanese people and government for their steadfast remembrance of those who died during an earlier event...

The upcoming Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, scheduled for Japan in March, is expected to result in a post-2015 framework dealing with that issue, with a view to enhancing preparedness and strengthening countermeasures to climate-related disasters...