UN-SPIDER - Global Platform for Disaster Reduction

10 June 2009, 1:40pm

UN-SPIDER at the Second Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Reduction, Geneva, 15 – 19 June 2009

UN-SPIDER, the Group on Earth Observation (GEO), the Asian Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC), and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) are conducting the following side event during the above meeting: “Accessing space-based information to support disaster risk reduction” on Tuesday 16 June 2009, from 13:30 – 15:00 PM. This side event will contribute to promoting synergies aimed at enhancing the use of space-based information for disaster risk reduction and it will include presentations by several institutions, and will also be used to launch a global thematic partnership and a regional platform that promote the access and use of space-based information. If you will be attending this Global Meeting please do consider attending this side event.

United Nations launches first Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
The United Nations launched the first global report uncovering how disaster risk is intensively concentrated in a very small portion of the earth’s surface and unevenly distributed. Based on more than 30 years of disaster data, the report highlights three main risk drivers that will be magnified by climate change and proposes 20 recommendations to help make the world safer. “Disaster risk is rising in an alarming way, threatening development gains, economic stability and global security while creating disproportionate impacts on developing countries and poor rural and urban areas,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the launch. “While we cannot prevent natural phenomena such as earthquakes and cyclones, we can limit their consequences.”

More information on the meeting

Global Assessment Report

Geo: International