UNITED NATIONS: India has told the UN General Assembly that it accords high importance to disaster risk reduction issues and is developing ambitious mitigation programmes to reduce the risk of losses from all hazards, including landslides, floods, earthquakes, heat waves and lightning.
Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, PK Mishra, said in his address to the Midterm Review of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) at a plenary in the UN General Assembly here on Thursday that in India disaster risk reduction is a “central public policy issue”.
Mishra is leading the Indian delegation at the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Midterm Review of the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 that is taking place from May 18-19 at the United Nations Headquarters.
He said that under India’s current presidency of the G20, the group’s members have agreed to establish a ‘Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction’.
“The five priorities identified by the G20 Working Group early warning for all, resilient infrastructure, improved financing of DRR, systems and capacities for response and ‘build back better’, and eco-system based approaches to DRR will provide added impetus to the achievement of Sendai targets globally,” he said.
Mishra told the UNGA that India has significantly increased funding earmarked for disaster risk reduction and has brought about landmark changes in its financing architecture to support the entire spectrum of disaster risk management needs disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery and reconstruction.