The City of Johannesburg's Disaster Management Centre joins the rest of the world in celebrating International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDR) on Tuesday, 13 October 2020.
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the day to promote a global culture of risk awareness and disaster reduction.
The day celebrates how individuals and communities around the world are reducing exposure to disastrous hazards and raising awareness about the significance of mitigating their daily risk exposure.
The 2020 theme is a continuation of the “Sendai Seven" campaign, which revolves around the seven targets of the Sendai Framework. This year will focus on Target (e) of the Sendai Framework, which aims to sustainably increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk-reduction strategies.
The Acting Director of Disaster Management in the City of Johannesburg, Tshepo Motlhale, says this year's actions will lay the foundation for the implementation of the previous targets of the Sendai Framework and is intricately linked with the Priority for Action 2: whose aim is to “strengthen disaster risk governance to manage risks".
Motlhale says according to the Sendai Framework, evidence shows that countries that prioritise disaster risk governance, develop implementable policies, legislative frameworks and invest in associated disaster risk reduction ventures build and maintain a greater capacity to manage and respond to disaster risks.
For the 2020/2021 cycle, the CoJ Disaster Management Centre will continue its focus in part on strengthening the capacity of people and ward-based systems in order for communities to anticipate risks better and withstand and speedily recover from disaster shocks and stresses.
Motlhale says that in order to better respond to disaster risks and threats, residents of the world ought to return to basics, form social compacts and make disaster risk reduction a global culture.
THE SEVEN GLOBAL TARGETS
2016 – Target (a): Substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030, aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020- 2030 compared to the period 2005-2015;
2017 – Target (b): Substantially reduce the number of people affected globally by 2030, aiming to lower the average global figure per 100,000 in the decade 2020- 2030 compared to the period 2005-2015;
2018 – Target (c): Reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030;
2019 – Target (d): Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, among them health and educational facilities, including through developing their resilience by 2030;
2020 – Target (e): Substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2030;
2021 – Target (f): Substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate and sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of the present Framework by 2030;
2022 – Target (g): Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030.
