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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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December
2007
Volume 13 -
Number 3 |
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What
has the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Been Up to This Year?
By Alicia Bandaranayake The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) encourages and promotes increased awareness of the importance of disaster reduction as a component of global sustainable development. By guiding and educating individuals and communities, they work towards their goal of reducing human, social, economic, and environmental losses due to natural hazards and related technological and environmental disasters. ISDR facilitates the implementation of disaster risk reduction measures and promotes disaster risk reduction awareness, but the disaster risk reduction work is performed by communities, cities, countries, etc., often through partnerships connected through ISDR. The 18th annual International Day for Disaster Reduction was celebrated on October 10, 2007. This day continues to be an occasion for raising awareness and reviewing the disaster reduction progress made worldwide. The main focus of the event was the work on the 2006-2007 World Disaster Reduction Campaign, “Disaster Risk Reduction Begins at School.” The campaign focuses on making school buildings safer and mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into school curricula or through school activities. These projects are executed by communities, cities, countries, partners, stakeholders, etc., in conjunction with the schools. One example of a disaster risk reduction tool is the Stop Disasters game developed by Playerthree and launched by the UN/ISDR secretariat. This game is an educational tool in the form of an online game aimed at children ages 9 to 16. The game takes children through the tasks of preparing for a tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, floods, and wildfire, giving players a budget and time limit and allowing them to decide whether to make upgrades to structures, set up warning systems, build defenses, etc. Another example of an action brought about by the campaign is Iran’s plan to reconstruct and strengthen 257,945 school classrooms within five years under the country’s “School Safety Law.” The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction met for the first time in June of this year. The forum of stakeholders concerned with reducing disaster risk had over 1000 participants from Governments, United Nations agencies, international financial institutions, regional bodies, civil society, the private sector, and scientific and academic communities. The Global Platform looked at disaster risk reduction from three different perspectives: climate change, urban settings and mega cities, and the challenges, costs, and opportunities in implementing risk reduction strategies. Key priorities identified at the forum included: increasing and optimizing investments in risk reduction at the national and international levels, integrating disaster risk reduction into sustainable frameworks and management tools, and strengthening advocacy activities throughout the ISDR system to stimulate awareness and support by all of the stakeholders. The Hyogo Framework for Action is a ten-year plan with the goal to substantially reduce disaster losses in lives, and in social, economic, and environmental assets of communities and countries by 2015. Work has continued this year on the following priorities for action: make disaster risk reduction a priority, know the risks and take action, build understanding and awareness, reduce risk, and be prepared and ready to act. For more information: http://www.unisdr.org/ |