Parliamentarians' plan of action for making Millennium Development Goal programmes disaster resilient

Parliamentarians from Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Togo, Kenya and Senegal, met at the Consultative Meeting for West African Parliamentarians on Disaster Risk Reduction: An Instrument for Achieving Millennium Development Goals by 2015, from 1-2 June 2010, in Dakar, Senegal.

This Parliamentarian statement asserts their overall goal to make Disaster Risk Reduction a priority at both the national and local levels, in order to increase people's resilience to disasters and to support economic development in their respective countries.

It asserts that in West Africa, disasters and climate change have made it even harder for us to achieve the global pro−poor initiative − the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 – the highest pro−poor commitment made by 189 Heads of State in 2000 at the Summit of United Nations in New York. 

It further asserts that Disaster Risk Reduction should be considered an instrument for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It should be an integral and essential part of strategies and programmes, aiming to avoid the creation of additional risks of disasters and climate changes effects in the development process.