Announcement

At the 5th Global Summit of GADRI (Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institute) held online on September 1 and 2, Dr. Haruo HAYASHI, President of NIED, gave a keynote speech entitled "Establishing IRDR ICoE: Coherence among DRR, CCA, SD by OSS-SR and Facilitators".

In his speech, Dr. HAYASHI spoke on behalf of IRDR Japan National Committee about the new international initiative proposed by the committee, Building Sustainable Global Society by Strengthening Disaster Resilience and emphasized the efforts and activities of all those involved so far.

He described OSS-SR (Online Synthesis System for Sustainability and Resilience) as a web-based knowledge integration system and Facilitators to use OSS-SR knowledge on site to solve stakeholders’ problems as a means of strengthening resilience. To carry these measures forward steadily, he said he had made a proposal to establish a new ICoE (International Center of Excellence) at IRDR international conference in June. He stressed that ICoE would focus on addressing the existential disaster risks facing Japan in the first half of the century and on social development by mobilizing science and technology in a very integrated way.

In one of the Asia-Oceania panel session, Ms. Ritsuko YAMAZAKI-HONDA, Deputy Director-General of NIED, as an Advisory Board Member of GADRI, moderated the discussion on Target E of the Sendai Framework, stating that the number of countries with national or/and local DRR strategies has significantly increased from 2015 to 2020 but that there is still room for further implementation.