The message sent by UN Secretary-General to the ceremony to mark the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2024

 

FOR this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, we are calling on countries to do more to protect and empower children and youth through education.

First, we have to ensure that every single school that is built — in our efforts to achieve universal education — every single school that is built has to be built in a manner that it can withstand disasters that are likely to occur in the areas that they are built. And where we already have schools, we have to begin to retrofit them so that they can withstand the hazards that they are exposed to.

The second ask we have is that all children must have access to the best possible information and knowledge on different aspects of disaster risk management. They should be aware of the hazards that they are exposed to. They should be fully equipped with knowledge to deal with those hazards to keep themselves safe in the face of those hazards and take this message home to their families as well so that they can challenge their parents. They can challenge their elder ones, to invest in resilience, to be aware of the risks that they are exposed to and to take necessary steps.

The third ask we have is that all countries endorse the Comprehensive School Safety Framework 2022 to 2030, Comprehensive School Safety Framework which supports the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

I would like all countries to sign off on that programme and make sure that by 2030 we have 100 per cent coverage in terms of school safety across the world if we do that, we will be really acting with a sense of responsibility towards ourselves, towards our society and towards our future generations. Thank you.