Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, Former Minister of Interior, Mexico, and Robert Glasser, Former Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction and Former Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), at the end of GP2017.

The Global Platform on Disaster Reduction will convene for the sixth time in Geneva, Switzerland, from 13-17 May 2019, on the theme of “Resilience Dividend: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Societies.” The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Government of Switzerland are jointly organizing and co-chairing the conference, which will consist of plenary sessions, two ministerial roundtables, five high-level dialogues, and working sessions on various disaster-related topics.

The conference presents an opportunity for representatives from governments, international organizations, and stakeholders to review achievements and discuss accelerating action on sustainable development and the commitments of the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Sendai Framework was negotiated and adopted in March 2015, and the sixth session of the Global Platform is the last global disaster-focused event for governments and stakeholders to meet before the 2020 deadline for Target E of the Framework. Target E expresses the international community’s commitment to substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies by 2020. Outcomes of the meeting are expected to feed into discussions at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in July and the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in September in New York.

The first two days of the session, 13-14 May, are dedicated to preparatory events and consultations. The events include the 4th World Reconstruction Conference, stakeholder consultations toward the 2nd Multi-Hazard Early Warning Conference, and a meeting on small island developing States (SIDS). The high-level segment will take place from 15-17 May. In parallel with the high-level segment, there will be presentations on DRR projects and initiatives at a central venue known as the Ignite Stage.

The Global Platform convenes once every two years for knowledge sharing and partnership building, with the overall aim of boosting action on DRR. The platform first convened in 2007, and its last meeting was in 2017 in Cancun, Mexico.