Online

UNDRR ROAMC Webinar: #NoNaturalDisasters in the workplace

Organizer(s) United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean
Event language(s)
  • Spanish
Date

One might think that #NoNaturalDisasters campaign is relatively recent, but it has been around for literally centuries. Since the 18th century, to be precise, it was first recognized that the cause of a disaster was different from a natural process - or threat.

The most recent addition to this centuries-old discussion is the Spanish-language Twitter account @DesastresNo, whose original English-language campaign was launched in June 2018 in England. Its objectives are very simple: to use the scale and scope of social media to inform and educate individuals and organizations in the disaster risk reduction and management and humanitarian sectors that the use of "natural" to describe disasters is wrong.

Describing disasters as natural gives the impression that they are inevitable and that human actions can do little to prevent or mitigate their impacts. When the opposite is true, disasters are the result of a natural or man-made hazard that impacts on a human settlement that is not adequately resourced or organized to withstand its impact, and whose population is vulnerable due to poverty, exclusion or being socially disadvantaged in some other way. More simply: a natural hazard becomes a disaster when it combines with exposure and vulnerability to cause loss of life, injury and damage, along with economic losses.

Date: Tuesday, september 22nd. 10:00 a.m. (Panama time)

Moderator: 

Víctor Cerón López, from #NoNaturalDisasters campaign. 

Panelists: 

• Raúl Salazar, chief of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) - Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean.

• Claudia Herrera, Executive Secretary of CEPREDENAC.

• Allan Lavell, PhD in economic geography, Sasakawa Award 2015

• Rodrigo Mena, ISS Researcher at Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

Registration link: https://undrr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__bretg76TMyjr1lX9Sp39w

Explore further

Share this

Is this page useful?

Yes No Report an issue on this page

Thank you. If you have 2 minutes, we would benefit from additional feedback (link opens in a new window).