For international broadcasting unions, the role of the media is not limited to covering disasters but also involves helping to raise awareness of risk before hazards strike

By Brigitte Leoni

CANCUN, Mexico, 2 June 2017 – International broadcasting federations have vowed to step up their work to spread information about disaster risk reduction to their audiences, thereby giving a critical boost to efforts by governments.

The pledge came at the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, which wrapped up last week in Cancun, Mexico, and was made by representatives of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The biennial Global Platform is the world’s top conference on efforts to curb the risk posed by natural and human-induced hazards, and the key messages in the ABU and EBU’s statement to the international meeting are set to be reflected in the official outcome document. In addition, they will be under discussion that the upcoming World Broadcasting Union meeting at the end of this month.

“We continue to be very committed as media play a crucial part in the implementation of the Sendai Framework in informing, alerting and educating populations,” said Ms. Natalia Ilieva, Head of the Secretary-General’s Office at the ABU.

“Since the Third UN World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015, we have worked with many Asian media broadcasting organisations and the issue is now very much on top of their agenda as their audiences are very vulnerable to disasters and in need for more information,” she added.

The 2015 conference, held in the Japanese city of Sendai, approved the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a 15-year international agreement to rein in deaths, the number of affected people and economic damage in disasters by tackling risk at source.