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The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) was capped by the IDNDR International Programme Forum last 5-9 July 1999 in Geneva, Switzerland. Partners in the International Framework of Action for the Decade, which included representatives of governments, the scientific and technical community, academia and the United Nations system, adopted the document entitled "A safer world in the twenty-first century: risk and disaster reduction", which contains the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). The Economic and Social Council took note of the strategy in its resolution 1999/63, and requested the Secretary-General to report to the United Nations General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session in November 1999 on the implementation of that resolution.

The main objectives of the ISDR are:

a) to enable communities to become resilient to the effects of natural, technological and environmental hazards, thus reducing the compound risk posed to social and economic vulnerabilities within modern societies; and
b) to proceed from protection against hazards to the management of risk, by integrating risk prevention strategies into sustainable development activities.

Since the above objectives are of a broad nature, they can serve as a framework for disaster reduction efforts at all levels, from local communities to national, regional and international concerns and interests.

In his report, the Secretary-General emphasized the importance of continuing the pioneering work carried out during the IDNDR, and outlined institutional arrangements for the implementation of the ISDR as a successor to the IDNDR, effective 1 January 2000.

ADPC has been invited to be a member of the Inter-Agency Task Force for Disaster Reduction, to be chaired by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

ISDR Secretariat, OCHA, United Nations, Palais Wilson, 51 Rue des Paquis, CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland. Tel.: (41-22) 917-9000, Fax: (41-22) 917-9098 or 917-9099, E-mail: isdr@un.org.