Disaster Risk Reduction Day 2022

The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is an opportunity to acknowledge the progress being made toward reducing disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health. The United Nations General Assembly has designated 13 October as the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) to promote a global culture of disaster risk reduction. The 2022 edition takes place during the Mid-term Review of the Sendai Framework, which will conclude at a High-level Meeting of the General Assembly in May 2023 with a political declaration.

Every year, UN Women makes sure to make the case that disasters affect women, girls, boys, and men differently. Recent UN Women and UNICEF research confirmed that women and girls are among the most vulnerable to natural hazards, conflict, climate change, and other threats such as COVID-19. Similarly, analysis of mortality rates and recovery trends from recent disasters shows that women and girls die in greater numbers and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to recover. Yet, women’s voice, agency, leadership, and participation in disaster prevention, preparedness and recovery remain under-supported, under-resourced, and under-valued. As a result, women are generally absent from the development of resilience strategies and decision-making processes for prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and recovery.

In 2022, the International Day will focus on Target G of the Sendai Framework: “Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030.” The urgency to achieve this target was strengthened in March 2022 by the announcement made by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres that “the United Nations will spearhead new action to ensure every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years.”