DRR Champions ready for new challenge

SENDAI, 17 March 2015 – UNISDR’s team of champions from around the world today outlined how they are preparing to meet the challenge of implementing the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.

Mayors, members of parliament, and private sector leaders reaffirmed their commitment and ambition to be the vehicles “to convert words into action”.

Ugandan MP Alex Bakunda Byarugaba said the Champions needed to coordinate and pool their efforts to support disaster resilient and sustainable development.

“If you want to walk fast then you will walk alone. If you want to walk as a group walk more slowly then we will surely walk as a team,” Mr Byarugaba said.

“We need champions who can do work; we need to see what is being done. We need real work with tangible outcomes, something to be seen and felt by the community. We do not need those who come, talk, and go, and don’t do much.”

The parliamentarian emphasised the importance of legislators and pointed to the progress made in Uganda towards implementation of a disaster risk reduction policy.

“If you want to do anything serious in any country you must engage with members of parliament. They are at the forefront of ensuring that the agenda of disaster risk reduction is promoted further and further,” he said.

Mayor of the host city, Ms Emiko Okuyama, referred to her pride in Sendai becoming a Role Model of the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient campaign. She told how the city had bounced back from the 2011 earthquake citing civil society “continuing to keep disaster issues in mind on a daily basis” through regular evacuation training and other initiative, as one such example.

Governor of Hyogo Prefecture, Mr Toshizo Ido, one of UNISDR’s earliest Champions recounted how Kobe had become an international hub of DRR expertise and were sharing their experience with other countries since the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

These lessons included: the importance of well-planned and inclusive reconstruction; effective partnership on a number of levels such as between local and central government and civil society; and putting resilience at the centre of recovery.

“After the Hanshin earthquake 30,000 people were trapped. Eighty per cent of the people rescued were rescued by their neighbours not by specialist units from outside. This indicates how important it is for local citizens to have the capability and empowerment in such things as disaster planning,” he said.

The Mayor of the Armenian city of Stepanavan, Mr Mikayel Gharakeshishyan, said the Making Cities Campaign should be used more as a rallying point for local disaster resilience efforts. He pointed to how the campaign had inspired his own municipality: “Stepanavan has developed a Resilience Action Plan and this has become fundamental for the resilience development of our city.”

The Chair of the UNISDR Private Sector Advisory Group Sandra Wu, of Kokusai Kogyo Co. Ltd, was impressed with the discussion among so many public sector Champions. She picked up on the importance of inclusiveness and the need to have an increased number of younger Champions.

From the perspective of the private sector, Ms Wu said business had much to offer as a partner in DRR: its ability to provide services, products, expertise, knowledge and facilities.

“We want the government – including local government – to realise that we, the private sector, are a resource and that we want to partner with you,” she said. “We would like to ask local governments to call in the private sector as partners from the beginning not later, or otherwise we are limited in what we can do ... we really want to play our part.”

Globally, there are 54 UNISDR DRR champions. It is expected this number will increase significantly to support implementation of the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction.