IOM, together with other humanitarian partners joined in the celebration of the International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR) through a half-day ceremony organized by the National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) on 13^th October 2016 at Ghion Hotel, Addis Ababa. The event aimed at promoting a global culture of disaster risk awareness and reduction was marked with the launch of a new framework “Sendai Seven Campaign – 7 Targets, 7 Years”, in line with Sustainable Development Goals.  This year, the occasion focused on the first target, “reducing disaster mortality” with the slogan “Live to Tell”. The 2016 campaign seeks to create a wave of awareness about actions taken to reduce mortality in Africa in general, and in Ethiopia in particular as the result of both rapid and slow onset disasters.

A highlight of this year’s IDDR event is a high level panel discussion with representatives from the NDRMC, UN Resident Coordinator, senior representatives from civil society organizations and UNISDR. Ato Tadesse Bekele, Senior Advisor of Early Warning and Emergency Response Directorate (NDRMC) stated: “It is not just the response that we should focus on, but mainly, reducing the risks. Reducing risks will decrease the recurrence of hazards and the risks of the effects”. The event also served as a forum to review the progress made to date and draw attention to follow up action in ensuring effective implementation of the framework across the African continent.

Presenting its projects and programs, IOM exhibited its efforts and engagement in addressing the ongoing El Nino / La Nina weather phenomena, including livelihoods, shelter and durable solutions programs in response to disasters. Specifically, the Emergency and Post-Crisis (EPC) unit of IOM Ethiopia has scaled up its efforts to track and monitor displacement using its Protection Enhanced Displacement Tracking Matrix (PE-DTM). IOM collates and presents information to humanitarian partners on displacements and its drivers – drought, resource based competition and unseasonal flooding - caused by the El Nino phenomenon in addition to other casual factors - conflict, fire, flooding and effects of volcano. The scale-up aims to strengthen the capacity of identifying underlying causes of vulnerabilities that leads to disasters as well as information dissemination on the multi-sectoral needs of internally displaced persons.

The Head of IOM’s EPC Unit, Martin Wyndham underlined: “Reducing disaster losses and strengthening disaster risk management at local, regional and national level is at the core of IOM Ethiopia’s Emergency and Post-Crisis strategy. In view of this and the ongoing El Nino/La Nina phenomena, IOM’s PE-DTM is ever more relevant and pivotal to help partners in providing a timely, efficient and coordinated response addressing the multi-sectoral needs of displaced persons. IOM will work closely with humanitarian partners and the Government of Ethiopia in implementing the new strategy, to provide comprehensive nationwide data on displacement and its drivers”.

IOM’s involvement in disaster risk reduction has been actively ongoing for nearly two decades with a growing and expanding portfolio of activities in disaster response, prevention, risk reduction, mitigation and climate change adaptation. IOM’s engagement functions on different levels, from community to regional and national capacity building. Its responses also covers all types of disasters from immediate onset natural catastrophes such as earthquakes to slow climate onset disasters such as coastal erosion and sea-level rise.