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United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

organization

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ7888446
Source-derived summary

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.

The UNDRR is part of the United Nations Secretariat and it supports the implementation and 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, Bone, 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.

History

1989 International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction

Given the increasing concern about the impact of disasters, the UN General Assembly declared 1990–1999 the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction” is organization. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, Nations and Office, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1999, 2015, 2005, 2019—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000. For this dossier, United, Nations and Office is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “organization” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7888446. VIAF identifies the subject as 79146824710707630652. The Library of Congress control number is no2013084162. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2015, 2005 and 2019.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction primary sources, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.