My city is getting ready, is yours?

"Making Cities Resilient", the global biannual awareness campaign 2010 - 2011, is launched today, Sunday 30 May 2010 in Bonn, Germany.

The campaign aims at strengthen a city’s readiness to reduce disaster impacts, by raising awareness and boost commitment for sustainable development practices that will increase a city’s well-being and safety.

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PPRD South Web Portal

In addition to providing proper visibility to the activities and to the outputs of the Programme, the PPRD South web portal is designed to serve as a multi-lingual interactive tool on civil protection cooperation between Europe and the Mediterranean and Balkan region....

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Regional training on HFA monitoring

In accordance with the recommendations of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters (HFA), in past years, the UNISDR secretariat has facilitated biennial reviews to monitor progress on implementation of the HFA at the national, regional and international levels. To facilitate countries' reporting on HFA progress, UNISDR has developed an online monitoring and reporting tool "HFA Monitor" which was used by 102 countries in the 1st reporting cycle covering 2007-2009. The 2nd cycle of reporting on HFA progress (for 2009-2011) will start in March 2010 with the objective of receiving completed progress reports from governments by September 2010. This self-assessment will provide valuable information on progress in the key areas of disaster risk reduction.

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Regional Training on Disaster Inventories: Towards developing capaities for risk reduction in the Arab region

UNISDR's Regional Office for Arab States, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Regional Centre for Disaster Risk Reduction (RCDRR) in Cairo, are joining efforts to provide focused support towards the development of national disaster databases in the Arab region.

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Flash floods in Red Sea coast of Egypt forecasted by early warning system

Heavy rains and flash floods in the Sinai (Egypt) have left at least seven people dead. The flood has damaged houses, roads, electricity lines, several harbours and the airport of Sharm-El-Sheikh. It has been the worst flash flood since 1994.

A positive element though is that the flash flood has been predicted two days in advance, by a computer-based flash flood early warning system. The early warning resulted in extra time to take action an spread the news for the competent authorities.

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Earthquakes caused the deadliest disasters in the past decade

In the past decade, nearly 60 per cent of the people killed by disasters died because of earthquakes, the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) revealed today in a joint press conference with the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

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African Union and League of Arab States Commit to Strengthen Cooperation on Climate Change

Climate change was among the items discussed during the fifth Annual Inter-Secretariat Meeting on General Cooperation between the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States, which met at the headquarters of the League of Arab States in Cairo, Egypt, on 16 January 2010

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Regional workshop on disaster risk reduction and climate change

The Regional Office for Arab States of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction secretariat (UNISDR), The World Bank, The League of Arab States and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport of the League of Arab States, are co-organizing a Regional Workshop on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction: "Challenges and Future Actions", which will take place in Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt from 21-23 November 2009.

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Regional workshop on urban risk reduction

UNISDR, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery of the World Bank, UNDP Syria and the Syrian Ministry for Local Administration convened a regional workshop on Urban Risk Reduction in Damascus on 4-5 November 2009. More than forty participants representing local authorities, researchers, academic experts, international and regional organizations have gathered to discuss regional priorities and challenges with respect to urban risk reduction as well as key actions to be undertaken regionally, nationally and locally to build safer cities and increase resilience to disasters.

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