Peace Boat & UNISDR’s Partnership to Promote “Making Cities Resilient” Campaign

June 30, 2014

Peace Boat is proud to announce its new partnership with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

Peace Boat has recently become an official Campaign Partner of the UNISDR’s “Making Cities Resilient” campaign, an initiative aiming to make cities around the world more disaster resilient.

Peace Boat’s passenger vessel will serve as:

-       A Messenger, with its physical presence able to raise awareness in the ports we visit,

-       A Venue for delivering education and training programmes,

-       A Vehicle, able to bring people and expertise to different regions of the world.

Over 1900 cities have joined the campaign since its launch in 2010, with each local government pledging to make their cities safer and more disaster prepared.

Signatories commit to at least one of the “Ten Essentials”, a set of key areas identified by Disaster Risk Reduction experts that are crucial to improving urban resilience.

By focusing their resources and efforts in these key areas, local governments can take concrete steps towards building resilient communities and ultimately minimizing human, social and environmental impacts of natural disasters.

Peace Boat will bring the “Making Cities Resilient” Campaign to the high seas, raising awareness of the campaign at 60 ports-of-call visited during our global voyages in 2014/2015.

Some of these ports-of-call include:

• Belem, Brazil
• Dakar, Senegal
• Corinto, Nicaragua
• Aqaba, Jordan
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Port Said, Egypt
• Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Sihanoukville, Cambodia
• Busan, South Korea
• Salalah, Oman
• Port Louis, Mauritius
• Walvis Bay, Namibia
• Papeete, Tahiti
• Toamasina, Madagascar

See here for the UNISDR’s article on the new partnership with Peace Boat.

Launch of Peace Boat’s “Making Cities Resilient” Promotional Campaign

Peace Boat will be in Central and South America in August 2014 to launch our “Making Cities Resilient” promotional campaign.

Young country representatives from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama will be joining us onboard to discuss disaster resilience, share best practices and determine how to minimize the impacts of disasters on communities in the region. The participants, who are each involved in disaster management in their home countries, will be joined by a representative of UNISDR onboard and will take part in a number of training sessions, events and site visits in the ports-of-call during the Central American segment of Peace Boat’s 84th Global Voyage.

The youth programme aims to strengthen regional cooperation on disaster risk reduction through providing a platform for sharing critical knowledge and building partnerships in the field of disaster management.

See here for the UNISDR’s press release for the programme.