While addressing the IPU Governing Council, Salvano Briceño, UN/ISDR Director, underlined the importance of disaster risk reduction in achieving the MDGs and coping with climate change impacts.
7 October 2010: The UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) presented an advocacy kit on disaster risk reduction (DRR) to parliamentarians at the 123rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which convened from 4-6 October 2010, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The IPU passed a resolution calling on parliaments to urge their governments to provide adequate and accessible resources to UN agencies involved in providing disaster assistance. According to UN/ISDR, the cost of disaster-related damage rose from US$75.5 billion in the 1960s, to roughly US$1 trillion in the past decade. Addressing the IPU Governing Council, Salvano Briceño, UN/ISDR Director, stated that “the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be achieved and climate change impacts cannot be minimized” without reducing risk to natural hazards. He underscored the role parliamentarians play in implementing DRR policies, noting their influence on their country’s spending laws. [UN/ISDR Press Release]