UNU-CRIS participates at the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (#EFDRR2021)

On 25 November, UNU-CRIS (Belgium), UNU-MERIT (Netherlands), and UNU-EHS (Germany) jointly organised a session at the forum PEDRR virtual booth to showcase the new and upcoming program of the United Nations University (UNU) “Climate Resilience Initiative (#UNUCRI) that responds to the floods of July 2021 that impacted Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Noting the significance of EFDRR as a regional platform of Europe established to address the regional disaster risk challenges, including the related scenarios of the climate crisis and allowing stakeholders to undertake shared responsibility and make actionable commitments to reduce disaster risk for communities and populations, showcasing the UNU “Climate Resilience Initiative" at the event will open up new avenues of potential partnership and collaboration with European agencies, experts and institutions.

During the session, representatives from CRIS (Nidhi Nagabhatla), MERIT (Sanae Okamoto and Thomas Baar), and EHS (Robert Oakes) presented insights about the climate resilience agenda outlined in this new initiative, including but not limited to dimensions of research, planning and policy and gaps/needs on diverse stakeholders, states, communities including the cross-border agencies and actors to exchange information and experiences on good practices and transformative approaches to manage climate crisis and disaster risks.

 "#EFDRR2021 underlines the importance of collaboration across borders and between governments if we are to reduce disaster risk." 

Madam Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction

This new and upcoming initiative of UNU will support building Europe’s opportunity for taking forward the climate talks and agreed agenda’s and to steer the momentum towards creating the climate and disaster-resilient future for the region #BuildingBackBetter and #ResilientRecovery along with providing a platform for exchange between the global north and global south in the subsequent phase.

Details of the joint UNU session at #efdrr session are available from the Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR) is a global alliance of UN agencies, NGOs, and specialist institutes PEDRR European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction Virtual Booth - PEDRR

For more information about this project, please contact Nidhi Nagabhatla (nnagabhatla@cris.unu.edu).