UN stresses  need for disaster risk management

New York, 17 Aug – (ANA) - Disaster risk management must become a central feature of development planning, the United Nations development agency chief Helen Clark has said. In a speech at the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) underscored her plan to double UNDP assistance for disaster reduction over the next five years, as well as add five countries per year to the growing list of potential “champions of disaster resilience.”   “In view of mounting disaster losses, investment in disaster risk reduction needs to be scaled-up exponentially,” Ms. Clark told the audience. In 2005, 168 countries endorsed the Hyogo Framework for Action, under which they agreed to achieve by 2015 the substantial reduction of disaster losses, in lives and in the social, economic and environmental assets of communities and countries. With the 2015 deadline fast approaching, calls for a new disaster management blueprint have been gaining traction. (ANA)

FA/ANA/17 August 2012-----------