English
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in collaboration with the Mexican Government organized the 5th Global Platform in Cancun, Mexico on May 22-26, 2017. ‘From commitment to action’ the slogan of this global meeting calls national leaders to sum efforts with academia, public and private sector to reduce the impacts of disasters worldwide.
According to Robert Glasser, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for DRR, is fundamental to understand the risks in a cross-sector approach to plan a better and resilient future. By 2030 more than 75% of the urban population will live in disaster-prone cities, in particular to hydrometeorological phenomena; therefore countries should systematically recoup economic losses from investing in cost-effective prevention measures such as early warning systems, multi-hazard mapping, forecast-based financing for early action and risk communication to make cities more resilient when disaster strikes, resulting in significant economic and social benefits in the short, middle and long term coping with sustainable development.
President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto highlighted his commitment to support and help nations vulnerable to climate change by providing capacity building, economic grants and additional resources that complement their particular needs in DRR at the regional and national level with the goal to seek resilient urban communities.
Concisely, the outcome of the Global Platform for DRR was that at least 87 countries would account disaster losses by 2020 resulting from the impacts of climate change.