Reducing the increasing vulnerabilities of communities all over the
world to natural disasters will play a critical role in addressing
some of the many and growing challenges of population movement
caused by sudden or slow-onset disasters, says IOM ahead of next
week's Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva (16-19
June).

In a statement to be made to participants at the UN
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)'s Global
Platform, which include government representatives, inter and
non-governmental organizations, financial institutions, the private
sector, civil society and academia, IOM will be stressing the need
for a concerted, speedy and united global effort to reduce human
vulnerabilities to disasters and to bolster community resilience to
them.

This is especially critical now as climate change and
environmental degradation is already impacting on human mobility. A
new study by the Norwegian Refugee Council's (NRC) Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says more than 20 million people
were displaced by climate-related sudden-onset natural disasters in
2008 alone.

A major concern for the whole world is that more than half the
world's population is now living in urban settlements for the first
time in human history. This largely unmanaged urbanization, partly
fuelled by rural populations moving away from deteriorating
eco-systems, has in turn exacerbated risks to public health, food
and water security, loss of livelihood and environmental
degradation, is taking its toll on human security and
development.

The Organization will reiterate its commitment at the Global
Platform to support governments to better manage population
movements along the continuum of voluntary to forced migration
caused by natural disasters while arguing for the recognition of
the humanitarian consequences of climate change in the successor
agreement to the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen in December.

The IOM delegation to the Global Platform will include staff
working on programmes directly concerned with climate
change/environmental degradation and their impact on migration and
displacement in Africa and Asia.

For further information, please contact:

Jean Philippe Chauzy

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9361/+ 41 79 285 4366

Email: "mailto:pchauzy@iom.int" target="" title="">pchauzy@iom.int