The Third UN World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) will be held from 14 to 18 March 2015 in Sendai, Japan to advance disaster risk reduction and resilience on a global scale. The WCDRR, organized by UNISDR and the Government of Japan, will gather key stakeholders in disaster risk management (DRM), including representatives from governments, development agencies, technical institutions, civil society, academia, and the private sector. Over eight thousand delegates will share experiences gained through regional and national approaches and discuss key DRM solutions, including tools to help countries build back in a more resilient manner and to manage the economic shocks caused by disasters.
Disaster risk management is at the core of the World Bank Group’s twin goals of alleviating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. To help the world’s most vulnerable communities better understand and manage their climate and disaster risks, the WBG works across five pillars of action designed under the guiding principles of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA): risk identification, risk reduction, preparedness, financial protection, and resilient recovery.
The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), the World Bank’s institutional mechanism for DRM, works with over 400 partners to provide grant financing, as well as technical assistance and training, to mainstream DRM in country development policies and planning. This includes a strong partnership with the Government of Japan through the Japan-World Bank Program for Mainstreaming DRM, a $100 million initiative which established a DRM hub in Tokyo. The WCDRR will help expand such partnerships and align forces with others who share the commitment to mainstream DRM in development planning and investments.
WCDRR is expected to adopt the successor to the HFA. This inter-governmental voluntary agreement will drive and monitor progress toward managing disaster risk in the years to come. It will also help inform critical upcoming discussions, including the financing for development conference in Addis Ababa, the Sustainable Development Goals discussions, the climate negotiations in Paris, and the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016.
GFDRR and the World Bank will be actively engaged at WCDRR and will bring technical and operational expertise to over three dozen sessions on critical topics such as strengthening disaster recovery systems for resilience, reducing disaster risk in urban settings, private sector engagement in DRM, risk financing and insurance, open data for resilience, building resilient infrastructure, and international cooperation for DRM post-2015.
For media enquiries please contact:
Camille Funnell cfunnell@worldbank.org, +61 423606850
Tomoko Hirai thirai@worldbankgroup.org, 090-5496-8066