Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction

13 October, 2021

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), from 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses. International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction and to celebrate how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters. Displacing millions of people every year, small-  and large-scale sudden onset disasters are caused by man-made, or natural hazards, as well as related environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks. Allocation for emergency response is approximately 20 times higher than for prevention and preparedness, with death, loss and damage a function of the context of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is people-focussed and action-oriented and seven 2030 targets to substantially:

  1. reduce global disaster mortality, aiming to lower average per 100,000 global mortality between 2020-2030 compared to 2005-2015;
  2. reduce the number of affected people globally, aiming to lower the average global figure per 100,000 between 2020-2030 compared to 2005-2015;
  3. reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product (GDP);
  4. reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, among them health and educational facilities, including through developing their resilience;
  5. increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies;
  6. enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate and sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of this framework; and
  7. increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people.

 

 

Image: Disaster risk reduction

from Understanding disaster risk: the key relationships and processes in the social construction of risk. Source: IFRC (2016). p23.