INTERPRAEVENT Symposium (November 2014), 3rd World Conference on DRR (March 2015) and Sustainable Development Summit (September 2015)

A Happy New Year! I presume all of you have made a good start for the new year, with fresh feeling and aspiration.

As has been repeatedly mentioned, the year 2015 is particularly important: The 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (3rd WCDRR) in March which will adopt Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (Post-2015 FDRR), and UN Summit for Sustainable Development in September which will adopt Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) incorporating the outcome of the 3rd WCDRR. The INTERPRAEVENT 2014 has adopted Recommendation to be forwarded to the 3rd WCDRR.

My first message for 2015 is therefore about the drafts of Post-2015 FDRR and SDGs which are currently under discussion at national, regional and global levels, and the recommendation of INTERPRAEVENT 2014 as a preceding process.

Recommendation of INTERPRAEVENT 2014
International Symposium of INTERPRAEVENT 2014 was held in November 2014 in Nara, Japan with participation of about 280 persons from 25 countries. The symposium adopted Recommendation to be forwarded to the 3rd WCDRR, which emphasized the need for (1) technology development on risk assessment/mitigation/recovery of large scale sediment disasters, consideration of climate change etc. and (2) promotion of sediment disaster risk reduction in linkage with international development agenda for post-2015. Please refer to ISN website.

Draft of Post-2015 Framework for DRR
The draft is in the final stage of preparation after a number of consultative meetings at national, regional and global levels, and Preparatory Committee meetings in July and November 2014. Ref.1(PDF: 83.7KB) refers to the latest draft picking up paragraphs relevant to sediment disasters.

Draft of SDGs
Following Rio+20 (2012), drafting of SDGs started by UN Open Working Group (OWG) in January 2013. The proposal of OWG was forwarded to UN Assembly in July 2014 which contained 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues including natural disaster. It should be noted that Rio+20 decided for SDGs to include natural disaster which is not included in MDGs. Ref.2(PDF: 41KB) refers to the proposal picking up goals/targets relating to natural disaster.

I hope this information will be useful for you in discussion on post-2015 FDRR and SDGs at the national platform and other occasions.Looking forward to seeing you in March in Sendai,

January 2015

Hidetomi Oi

President of International Sabo Association