Habitat III Series: Urban Planning and Disaster Risk Reduction
For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population is living in urban areas. It is remarkable that only one century ago, two out of every 10 people were living in such areas. The world has been rapidly urbanizing since and, in some countries and regions, at an unprecedented pace. By 2050, it is expected that seven out of every 10 people on the planet will be living in urban areas.
To discuss the challenges and opportunities that urbanization offers, the United Nations General Assembly decided to convene the third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in October 2016 to promote a renewed global commitment to sustainable urbanization. The Habitat III Conference will bring together some 30,000 representatives from around the world, including delegates from the 193 UN member states, along with local government officials, private sector representatives, international organizations, civil society, academia, and the United Nations System.
It is a unique opportunity to rethink urban development, discuss the important challenge of how cities are planned and managed, identify the opportunities that urbanization brings, and position cities as drivers of sustainable development.
More than one hundred training events, dialogues and parallel sessions will take place within the framework of the conference, offering a unique venue for developing a shared perspective on human settlements and sustainable urban development, and to formulate and adopt a “New Urban Agenda” that will guide inclusive, integrated, and sustainable urbanization for the next twenty years.
The New Urban Agenda proposes a new development paradigm and a new business model where urbanization and development are seen as mutually reinforcing and crucial to sustainable development. This represents a critical juncture to use the dynamic forces of urbanization to make a giant leap towards sustainability and collectively adopt a strategy that helps cities walk steadily into the 21st century.
Over the past 20 years disasters have affected 4.4 billion people, caused USD 2 trillion of damage and killed 1.3 million people. Disasters have affected people living in developing countries and, in particular, the most vulnerable communities within these countries.
The webinar will introduce participants to the conceptual foundations of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and the Sendai Framework for DRR. It will also present examples on disaster response and on the transition to recovery. It will include examples on how to mainstream DRR principles into urban planning and on resilience-building.
The webinar will be delivered in the following format:
Presentations by experts
- Mr. Sanjaya Bhatia, Head of the Northeast Asia Office of the United Nations International Strategy for DRR and Head of the Global Education and Training Institute in Incheon, Republic of Korea
- Captain Steve O'Keefe, Expert in resilience, disaster risk reduction, operations, logistics and peacekeeping operations
- Dr. Graham Brewer, Expert in disaster risk management, reconstruction and built environment from the University of Newcastle, Australia; Fellow of UNITAR
Q&A
Wrap up
The webinar will be held WEDNESDAY 27 JULY at 18:00 (Ecuador time) / THURSDAY 28 July at 09:00 (Newcastle time) / 08:00 (Seoul time)
he Webinar is open to the public. It is the third of a Webinar Series aimed at raising awareness of key topics related to the New Urban Agenda, which will be discussed and adopted in Quito during Habitat III.
The webinar will be held WEDNESDAY 27 JULY at 18:00 (Ecuador time) / THURSDAY 28 JULY at 09:00 (Newcastle time) / 08:00 (Seoul time)
Recommended reading: Zero Draft of the New Urban Agenda: www.habitat3.org/zerodraft
Register here: www.rumboahabitat3.ec/en/webinars-en/urban-planning-env.html#urban-plan…