UN Geneva Press Briefing: UNDRR, IOM

Bonjour à toutes et à tous. Good morning. Welcome to the Geneva briefing for today, Friday, Tuesday, sorry, the 13th of October. It is the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. More about that in a minute. First, I wanted to flag that today in New York, the General Assembly takes up the election of the members of the Human Rights Council. And also in New York later today, the Secretary-General will present his last proposal for UN program budget after a decade in office. So those might be two things to look out for. Here in Geneva, of course, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women CDAW is reviewing the report of Paraguay today and will review Togo, Angola, and Cabo Verde in that order during the course of this week. Also, you know that the sixth session of the UN Forum of Mayors is ongoing today across Place des Nations at WIPO. And the 77th session of the UNHCR Executive Committee is meeting here in the Assembly Hall. I mentioned earlier the commemoration of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, and appropriately today we have a thematic briefing on the subject with our guests. Before giving the floor to Jeanette and to our colleagues from the IOM, I just wanted to flag to you that the Secretary General has got a message that he issued yesterday for the day. And I'll quote just briefly from it. He says, "Our homes are where we sleep, care for one another, and build our daily lives. But how they're planned, built, and maintained can determine whether or not they keep us safe." He goes on to say that every year, millions of homes are damaged or destroyed, and that this affects primarily older persons persons with disabilities, low-income households, and other vulnerable groups. He says that resilience starts at home. That's the theme of the day today, but households cannot do this alone and need governments to help them. So on that note, I think I'm going to pass the floor to pass the mic to Jeanette Ellsworth from UNDRR. Go ahead.

Thank you very much. Today, on the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDRR is drawing attention to a simple but urgent message: resilience starts at home. Official data reported by countries through the Sendai Framework Monitor for Disaster Risk Reduction show that housing accounts for 43% of direct economic disaster losses. The data also show that around half of all people reported as affected by disasters experienced damage to or destruction of their homes. These figures remind us that when disasters strike, Homes are often where the greatest losses are felt, both economically and socially. We are also releasing new evidence that highlights the scale of the challenge. Modeling by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, CDRI, estimates average annual losses of $228 billion to residential buildings from cyclones, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes under current climate conditions. That represents more than half of the estimated losses to the world's building stock from these hazards. 11 years after the adoption of the Sendai Framework, progress in reducing disaster mortality has not been matched by comparable progress in reducing the number of people affected by disasters or the economic costs they face. As a special representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Kamael Kishore states today, until housing becomes safer and more resilient, we will not be able to significantly reduce the human and economic impacts of disasters. But resilience is not only about buildings, it is also about people. Launching today in London, new findings from the Lloyds Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2026 show the importance of household preparedness. Among those people who had received an advanced warning during a disaster, only 27% of those who had neither a household disaster plan nor confidence in their ability to protect themselves and their families were able to act on that warning. By contrast, 83% of those who had both a plan and confidence in their ability to respond were able to take action. The findings also point to inequalities across income groups, highlighting the importance of ensuring that all households have access to risk information, early warnings and the resources they need to protect themselves. UNDRR is therefore calling on governments, the private sector and communities to put housing resilience at the center of disaster risk reduction efforts by building in safer locations, enforcing resilient building standards, retrofitting existing homes and empowering households with the knowledge and tools they need to prepare for disasters. Our message today is straightforward. Reducing disaster impacts requires both resilient homes and prepared households. If we want to reduce disaster losses and protect communities, resilience must start where people live. If you're interested in learning more, we will circulate our press release and associated material. We have several events running here in Geneva this week, including one on communicating risk and a session on Thursday on extreme heat in Europe that will look into what can be learned from this summer's heat events and how to prepare for a warming future. Finally, we're launching Resilience in One Action, a quick and engaging interactive experience that helps people explore practical steps they can take to prepare for disasters. In just a few minutes and through six simple questions, participants receive personalized recommendations showing that building resilience starts with one informed action before disaster strikes. And we have a quick link here to the code, which we'll leave behind if anyone wants to try out the tool. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Jeanette. Let me take a look and see if there are any questions on that. And if not, perhaps what I'd ask is for our colleagues from IOM to come up to the rostrum, and if you don't mind sticking around, that way there might be questions for you later. Perhaps just come and sit here, please. Would you like to just go straight into it? Do you have a brief introduction perhaps? Go ahead.

Thank you very much, everybody. So today we have Maria Moita with us, our director for the Department of Humanitarian Response and Recovery at the International Organization for Migration. So Maria is going to tell us a little bit about this issue from our perspective. Go ahead, Maria.

Thank you and good morning. For many families, the end of disaster is only the beginning of a much longer struggle to return home, restore livelihoods, and rebuild their lives. We are seeing this in Nepal, Venezuela, Colombia, where recent disasters have damaged homes, displaced families, and left communities facing difficult choices about what comes next. What we do before disasters strike can reduce their impact. What we do afterwards can determine how quickly people can rebuild their lives and reclaim their dignity. In 2025, IOM reached 1.4 million people across 39 countries through disaster risk reduction programs, supported almost 1,200 communities, and helped extend early warning coverage to more than 1.2 million people. These investments help communities prepare, protect lives and livelihoods, and reduce displacement risks. But recent emergencies remind us why preparedness must be connected to recovery. In Nepal, the August floods affected more than 84,000 people and damaged approximately 7,500 homes. IOM assessments across 48 displacement sites identified 3,650 displaced people with 28 sites remaining operational. Working with the government of Nepal, IOM is tracking displacement, coordinating assistance, and supporting early recovery planning. Nepal highlights why reliable information matters. Knowing where people have been displaced, what they need, and the risks they face help us direct assistance and orient recovery to build back better. In Venezuela, following the June earthquakes, IOM has assisted 50,600 people, providing more than 90,000 services, including temporary accommodation, essential supplies, health care, and protection. Yet assessments found that more than half of the affected households identified housing repairs as the key priority. Families face difficult choices, remain displaced, return home, or relocate elsewhere. Temporary shelter provides immediate safety, but recovery requires safe housing, community infrastructure, and job creation. The lesson is clear. Recovery planning must begin early before displacement becomes prolonged. In Colombia, the August earthquake reportedly affected nearly half a million people and damaged more than 200,000 homes. Approximately 20,000 families remain displaced in Cali. IOM has distributed more than 5,000 shelter kits alongside households and hygiene supplies, while supporting temporary accommodation, displacement monitoring and protection. As needs shift towards permanent housing, infrastructure and livelihoods, Colombia reinforces yet another lesson. Rebuilding homes alone is not enough. Communities also need functioning services and opportunities to rebuild their lives. In 2025, IOM supported disaster recovery and reconstruction in 16 countries. The experiences of these three countries point to one shared priority. Preparedness, emergency response, and recovery must work together. We need sustained investment in early warnings, local preparedness, safer housing, and recovery efforts that begin from the outset and build resilience. Disasters may strike suddenly. Displacement can last much longer. Disaster risk reduction helps preventing displacement. Recovery can help prevent it from becoming prolonged. And resilience depends on investing in both. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Maria Mui, the Director of Department of Humanitarian Response and Recovery at IOM. Any questions for either of our guests in the room or online? I'm going to check quickly online. Perhaps not. It seems like it's feast or famine here at the press briefing in Geneva compared to last Friday. I'm going to thank you very much. You're welcome to stay at the rostrum in case, you know, people have a sudden jolt of a question that they want to ask. But meanwhile, let me just bring your attention to media advisory that was issued yesterday by UNOPS. So the chief of UNOPS, Jorge Moreira da Silva, He's going to visit Thailand, Nepal, and the Philippines from today to the 20th of October. In Thailand, he's joining the high-level meetings at the 2026 annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. He's later visiting flood-affected sites in Nepal, in the Nuwakot district, and in the Philippines, he's visiting the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and Muslim Mindanao. where UNOPS manages a program on peace, conflict resolution, governance, and human rights. If you want to know more about that or if you want to set up an interview, you should contact our colleague Juliet Touma in Copenhagen. I think that unless I see a little bit of movement here, we're going to call it a day. Questions on these topics or any other? Going once. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.