Building Capacity to Develop and Implement Cities Resilience Action Plans

A public forum “Capacity Development for Implementing Cities Resilience Action Plans” to be held in the 2015 World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) on 16 March 2015.

Building Capacity to Develop and Implement Cities Resilience Action Plans 27 February 2015, Geneva, Switzerland - Urban risk is continually increasing. Urbanization is taking place at an unprecedented rate. By 2030 more than 60% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, with record concentrations in large urban conglomerations and megacities in the developing world. Vulnerability of cities to disasters is on the rise especially as poor people settle in high-risk urban areas. The implication of this reality is the need for cities to build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities, while integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into planning processes.

Understanding this need and as part of a cooperation with the UNISDR's Office for Northeast Asia and the Global Education Training Institute (GETI), UNITAR’s Decentralized Cooperation Programme will be hosting the public forum “Capacity Development for Implementing Cities Resilience Action Plans” to take place in Sendai, Japan on 16 March in the framework of the 2015 World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR).

The forum will provide a venue for local governments, private sector institutions, non-governmental organizations, civil society, United Nations and intergovernmental organizations to participate in an open discussion on how cities can become more resilient and be better prepared to respond to the physical, social, and economic challenges of the 21st century.

During the forum, representatives from UNITAR, the World Bank, and the Rockefeller Foundation will share their experiences and initiatives aimed to build capacities for risk reduction. Mayors and city representatives from cities like Incheon, Republic of Korea; Stephanavan, Armenia; and Saida, Lebanon will exchange best practices on how to develop and implement city resilience action plans. Senior representatives from the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), as well as the European Union’s Committee of Regions will provide an insight to the vision and priority issues for local governments in the area of disaster risk reduction.

With the aim to continue to provide training opportunities for local authorities and strengthen their capacities to reduce risk, Ms. Sally Fegan-Wyles, UN Assistant Secretary General and UNITAR Executive Director together with Ms. Margareta Wahlstrom, Special Rspresentative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction will be announcing the launching of the joint UNITAR and UNISDR-GETI e-Learning training course "Urban Risk Reduction: Developing and Implementing Resilience Action Plans for Cities”, which will take place from 6 April to 7 June 2015. Registration is open until 16 March.

Unitar Around the World