UN disasters expert gives Gates Distinguished Lecture.
The UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction talked about how to limit the impact of natural disasters in a lecture on Wednesday, 16th February at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Margareta Wahlstrom will gave the first Gates Distinguished Lecture of 2011 on UN efforts to reduce the impact of natural disaster through both improving disaster preparedness and the global response to disasters.
The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, adopted by the UN Member States in 2000 and headed by Wahlström, includes the Hyogo Framework for Action devised in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Its aim is to “…strengthen disaster response preparedness at all levels, and ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and a local priority, rooted within the key government institutions”.
Wahlström says climate change is now the principal source of risk for natural disasters.
