MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UN-backed forum on disaster reduction kick off

Representatives of more than 100 governments converged in Geneva today to launch a new United Nations-chaired forum on disaster reduction that is expected to the major international consultative group on the issue.

The first meeting of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction brings together governments, the UN and other specialized organizations, academic institutions, financial associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society groups to tackle threats posed by climate change and urbanization. "Our vulnerability to disasters has never been so high," said John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and chair of the Platform. He noted that the proportion of people living in urban areas has exceeded that of people residing in rural regions for the first time ever, with one-third of the urban population inhabiting marginal settlements or slums. "Growing urbanization combined with climate change will create new stresses on urban settlements, making millions of people even more vulnerable to disasters," he added. "We have no choice. We need to move the disaster risk reduction agency forward if we want to save lives." Of the 10 most populated cities in the world, eight are prone to earthquakes while six are exposed to storm surges, floods and tsunamis. The UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change envisages increased instances of weather-related disasters in the future, with over 200 million people at potential risk from coastal flooding in densely populated cities such as Cairo, Dhaka, Mumbai, New York and London. This week's three-day meeting will review progress made in policies adopted since the January 2005 World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan. Taking place only weeks after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, countries adopted the Hyogo Framework for Action, a 10-year plan to bolster the ability of nations and communities to respond to disasters. "We certainly need to continue reducing carbon emissions but as global warming is already here, we need at the same time to find other ways to reduce the impacts of climate change," said Sálvano Briceño, Director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat. "Good governance, effective planning, courageous budgeting and implementing policies to prevent human settlement in hazardous areas are indispensable; we have to ensure that hospitals, schools, transportation and water systems are hazard-resilient," he said.