UNDRR Helping Countries Integrate Health Into Disaster Risk-Reduction Strategies

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) is working with member countries to help governments integrate health into their disaster risk-reduction strategies.

Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR, Mami Mizutori, said that this is one of several engagements that the organisation has been undertaking since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

She was speaking during Monday’s (November 1) press conference for the Seventh Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas and the Caribbean (RP21) at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston.

Mrs. Mizutori said the UNDRR’s examination of countries’ disaster risk strategies, including those in Latin America and the Caribbean, found that “in almost all [states], health is not integrated”.

“This is because, traditionally, [strategies] would [focus] more on disasters caused by natural hazards,” she noted, citing hurricanes as an example, in the case of the Caribbean.

Mrs. Mizutori said this focus widened with the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, on March 18, 2015.

The Framework (2015–2030) aims to achieve the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods, and health, in the economic, physical, social, cultural, and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities, and countries over the next 15 years.

It outlines four priorities for action to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risks – understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; investing in disaster reduction for resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to ‘build back better’ in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.

“So, we continue to help governments integrate health into their strategies for disaster risk reduction [and] bring together the national disaster management agencies and the public health agencies, so that there is a coherent policy,” Mrs. Mizutori pointed out.

Established in December 1999, the UNDRR serves as the UN focal point for disaster risk reduction. It oversees the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, supporting countries in its implementation, monitoring, and sharing what works in reducing existing risks and preventing the creation of new ones.

The four-day Regional Platform, which runs from November 1 to 4, is being jointly hosted by the Government, the UNDRR Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean, and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).