Disaster Risk Agreement Among UN Leader's 2015 Highlights
The Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction was agreed on in March and points the way toward resilience.
United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon listed this month's Paris climate agreement as a major achievement of the organization's 70th year, a "pivotal year" in his words Dec. 16, as he also cited the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, which was agreed on in March and points the way toward resilience.
"The Paris Agreement on climate change is a sign of hope in troubled times. It is a triumph for multilateralism that shows the United Nations delivering results the world desperately needs," Ban said during his year-end news conference. "The Paris Agreement surpassed expectations. World leaders recognized that we could and must do better than settling for the lowest common denominator. So they reached higher. The Paris Agreement gives us 'Plan A' for the planet – A for ambition." He said after nine years of pushing hard for the agreement, he will "press world leaders to translate promise into practice" by implementing it.
The Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction and other agreements reached during 2015 "have set the stage for a future that leaves no one behind," Ban said, as he also cited "epic flows" of refugees and said during 2016, "the world needs to aim for a new global compact on human mobility."
The Sendai Framework resulted from stakeholder consultations begun in March 2012 and inter-governmental negotiations held from July 2014 to March 2015. It sets seven global targets:
- Substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030, aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020-2030 from that of 2005-2015.
- Substantially reduce the number of affected people globally by 2030.
- Reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product by 2030.
- Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, including health and educational facilities, and increasing their resilience by 2030.
- Substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020.
- Substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate, sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of the framework by 2030.
- Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information/assessments by 2030.