Highlights and images for 3 June 2025

The Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) was adopted 10 years ago, but many of its commitments remain unfulfilled, even as disasters become more frequent and intense. Only five years remain until 2030, when the Sendai Framework was meant to be achieved—so, many country delegates and stakeholders participating in the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) are calling for urgent action to put in place multi-hazard early warning systems (EWS), restore livelihoods for displaced people and communities, and build resilience.

Want to dig deeper into today's talks? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report.

The second preparatory day of the eighth GPDRR featured several parallel events. At the opening of the one-day World Resilience Recovery Conference (WRRC), UNDRR head Kamal Kishore explained that the event, previously known as the World Reconstruction Conference, was renamed to place the focus where it should be—not only on physical assets but on the resilience dimension of recovery. Kishore noted that disasters also offer an opportunity to pivot away from livelihoods that were already fragile and eroding, toward more sustainable and value-added pursuits.

Restoring livelihoods and building trust with local communities and people were recurring themes in all discussions. Some speakers noted the situation of communities affected by long-term systemic change, who may remain in a “perpetual recovery” state in which they are buffeted by one disaster after another. Small and medium-scale disasters, they argued, deserve greater attention and financial commitment. Krishna Swaroop Vatsa of India’s National Disaster Management Authority presented an example of how this can be achieved, noting the agency has allocated 30% of its funds specifically for recovery and reconstruction.

Many speakers emphasized the central importance of local-level trust and social inclusion for DRR to be successful. At the Stakeholder Forum closing event, Jamie Cummings, UNDRR Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism, presented a fresh take on the familiar message of inclusion of people with disabilities, affirming that the message from the Forum was “not only ‘nothing about us, without us’, but more broadly, ‘nothing without us’ at all.”

WRRC ran in parallel with the second day of the Stakeholder Forum on DRR and the Global Early Warning For All Multi-Stakeholder Forum (EW4All).

The Global Platform’s official programme began at mid-day with a high-level roundtable event in which Deputy Prime Ministers of Tajikistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as many ministers and senior country delegates, described achievements of their national platforms for DRR.

The formal opening of the Global Platform of DRR 2025 took place in the afternoon, with a choreographed performance by Sendai4Youth, in which a parade of young people addressed the crowd. “We are the catalysts for resilience, the architects of now,” they said, “Observers, co-creators of policy leading to action…We code not just apps, but answers. Let innovation walk with inclusion, because risk does not wait.”

A reception hosted by the Government of Switzerland, featuring singers and traditional instruments including a Swiss alphorn, brought the day to a festive close.