Wednesday, October 13 2021, the African Union of Broadcasting and Social Change Makers joined efforts to commemorate the UN’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. This is an opportunity for the world to acknowledge the progress being made toward reducing disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health. The 2021 edition focuses on “International cooperation for developing countries to reduce their disaster risk and disaster losses.” This is the sixth of the Sendai Seven targets. Without real action on climate in the next ten years, extreme weather events will be overwhelming for the entire world. On the continent, sustainable activities are being carried out by Social Change Makers like the Disaster Resilience Network Ghana https://www.drnghana.org/ and many others. Despite progress made so far by all stakeholders in prevention, much has to be done since disasters impact low- and middle-income countries disproportionately, particularly in terms of mortality, numbers of people injured, displaced and homeless, economic losses (as a percentage of GDP) and damage to critical infrastructure. We cannot eradicate poverty and hunger if we don’t step up investments in disaster risk reduction. International cooperation for developing countries through Official Development Aid and capacity building is essential to boost disaster resilience in the face of extreme weather events and other natural and man-made hazards. First International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction was observed in the year 1989. The day was adopted after the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) call for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction. According to the Insurance Information Institute (iii), overall losses from world-wide natural catastrophes in 2020 totaled $210 billion dollars, significantly higher than $166 billion in 2019. There were 980 events that caused losses in 2020, compared with 860 events in 2019. Insured losses from the 2019 events totaled $82 billion, also significantly higher than $57 billion in 2019. Natural catastrophes in 2020 caused 8,200 deaths, compared to 9,435 in 2019. Read More on DRRDay2021 https://iddrr.undrr.org/ https://www.drnghana.org/drrday-2021.html?fbclid=IwAR3JQo-spumEYZYgxxmKI05QIV6j8TARBL1GrPzICsSC3wRgGGA5_s9JMF8