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Displaying 105 of about 11092 resultsNEW YORK, 2 August 2013 – Why are persons with disabilities so disproportionately affected by disasters? This was the important, if often overlooked, question presented to the largest international meeting on disability issues, at the United Nations last week.
The answer, simply put, is because disaster prevention measures are designed and implemented…
GENEVA, 21 May 2013 - Senior government officials from developing small island states and climate change experts have warned of a massive increase in human, economic and material losses in these countries if risk reduction measures are not taken urgently to mitigate the impacts of major hazards and climate change.
The warning was issued by repres…
GENEVA, 3 May 2013 - UNISDR Chief, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the European Union's newly announced strategy on adaptation to climate change and stated: "The adoption of this new strategy is a major incentive for European states to step up their efforts for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
Urban resilience is especially im…
GENEVA, 25 April 2013 - The Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Margareta Wahlström, today extended condolences to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the collapse of an eight-storey building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and reiterated that Dhaka is also in a high risk earthquake zone.
In meetings last year in Dhaka, Ms.…
NEW YORK, 19 May 2014 – Following on a statement by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that “economic losses are out of control and can only be reduced in partnership with the private sector,” the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) today launched the R!SE Initiative to mainstream disaster risk management into corporate planning and investm…
NEW YORK, 27 March 2013 - The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, today welcomed the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, into UNISDR's Making Cities Resilient Campaign in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Hoboken brings to four the number of US cities who have joined UNISDR's global campaign which has…
GENEVA, 18 December 2012 - The Italian Government is urgently seeking EUR 40 billion over the next 15 years for flood prevention following a week of heavy rains that began on 10 November in the north and then wreaked havoc in Umbria and Tuscany in central Italy.
Italy's Environment Minister, Corrado Clini, recently presented a proposal to the country's…
PARIS, 20 November 2012 - It's a scenario from hell which could rival the 2010 Haitian earthquake in terms of human losses.
Conservative estimates are that the next big earthquake could result in 100,000 dead, 200,000 injured and one to two million people displaced in the fabled Kathmandu Valley where memories live on of the 1934 earthquake which took…
YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA, 23 October 2012 - A UN Report released today at the opening of the Fifth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk reduction shows that Asia and the Pacific is paying a huge price for extreme weather events which are now impacting negatively on the continent's economic development.
Increasing disaster risks in Asia-Pacific ar…
SENDAI, 9 October 2012 - UNISDR today recognized Sendai, the largest city in Japan's tsunami-struck region of Tohoku, as a role model for the Making Cities Resilient Campaign for "promoting community-based disaster risk reduction and empowering people to act on disaster risk reduction."
Following the Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011, Se…
GENEVA, 28 September 2012 - A new report by UN-Habitat links the world's future prosperity to the ability of cities to reduce risk and build resilience to adverse forces of nature.
Titled State of the World's Cities 2012/2013 - the Prosperity of Cities, the report identifies soaring unemployment, food shortages and rising prices, strains on financial i…
GENEVA, 13 August 2012 - A new study by UNICEF and UNESCO is a timely assessment of just how some countries are faring, or not, with the implementation of disaster risk reduction education seven years after such education was requested by the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA).
The HFA - the 10-year global disaster risk reduction action plan agreed upon…
Geneva, 3 July 2012 – The United Nations office for disaster risk reduction, UNISDR, today officially welcomed five members of parliament from Bangladesh, Uganda, Cambodia, Senegal and the East African Legislative Assembly as parliamentary champions committed to promoting legislation for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
This month…
RIO DE JANEIRO, 21 June 2012 - The UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, used yesterday's UNISDR "Resilient Cities" event at Rio+20 to make an urgent appeal for scientists to use plain language if they are to play a larger role in policymaking on climate change.
"The next fifteen years are really problematic. We'll have a billion more peo…
GENEVA, 12 June 2012 - UNISDR chief Margareta Wahlström today congratulated Switzerland for getting ready to face the consequences of a major earthquake even if the last one happened over 1,000 years ago.
"It is good to see Switzerland setting an example for earthquake preparedness. Taking this threat seriously and involving its neighbors in an ambitio…