United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) was created in December 1999 to ensure the implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (General Assembly (GA) resolution 54/219).

UNDRR (formerly UNISDR) is part of the United Nations Secretariat and it supports the implementation & review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted by the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction on 18 March 2015 in Sendai, Japan. The Sendai Framework is a 15-year voluntary people-centred approach to disaster risk reduction, succeeding the 2005-2015 framework.

UNDRR’s vision is anchored on the four priorities for action set out in the Sendai Framework.

UNDRR is led by a United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction (SRSG) and has over 100 staff located in its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, 5 regional offices (Africa: Nairobi, the Americas: Panama City, Arab States: Cairo, Asia-Pacific: Bangkok and Europe: Brussels) and other field presences in Addis Ababa, Almaty, Bonn, Incheon, Kobe, New York-UN Headquarters, Rio de Janeiro and Suva.

UNDRR coordinates international efforts in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and it reports on the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. It convenes the biennial Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction.

On 1 May 2019, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction officially changed its acronym to UNDRR (from UNISDR) to better reflect its name. The former acronym had not been changed since the office was called the International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (see History below).