VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Director Ricardo Mena lauds Indonesia as a country that is leading in global efforts for disaster risk reduction.

"This is very important (effort) and I think this is where we think that Indonesia is leading on the global efforts of reducing disaster risks," Ricardo Mena stated in a special interview with ANTARA here on Monday (May 23).

Mena said that Indonesia has given a strong message about the importance of disaster risk reduction efforts by hosting the 2022 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR).

"We believe that Indonesia is giving very strong message through the engagement and hosting of the GPDRR here in Bali. We are very thankful to the Indonesian Government for that," he remarked.

The UNDRR Director also highlighted Indonesia's leadership in adopting long-term disaster risk reduction plan.

"I think what I would like to highlight is that Indonesia is one of few countries in the world that has adopted a very long term plan to reduce disaster risks," he uttered.

"And this is very important because if you want to really address the root causes, you cannot do it in two, three or five years. It's impossible, and we look and welcome very much the fact that Indonesia has plan to reduce disaster risks that goes even beyond 2040," he added.

To that end, Mena also encouraged other countries to follow Indonesia's steps in adopting long-term plans for disaster risk reduction.

"Otherwise, it is very difficult to do it in such a short period of time to address the enormous amount of risks that we have already accumulated over the past development processes in the past three decades," he said.

Indonesia hosts a series of meetings of the 7th Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2022) held in Bali on May 23-28, 2022.

The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) is the premier global forum for discussing the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction, also known as the Sendai Framework 2015-2030.

The framework, which has been ratified by 187 countries, aims to serve as a global reference for reducing disaster risks around the world in the future.

Now, the GPDRR event for this year's session will take place at a very important time, namely seven years since the adoption of the Sendai Framework and more than two years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Antaranews)