At this year’s International Disaster and Risk Conference (IDRC), conducted by the Global Risk Forum and to be held 26–30 August in Davos, Switzerland, ICIMOD will host a session on Disaster Risk Reduction in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region. The theme for the conference is Integrative Risk Management in a Changing World – Pathways to a Resilient Society and participants will include risk management experts, practitioners, and scientists, as well as key players from civil society, NGOs, and the private sector. 

The ICIMOD session will be held 30 August 8:30–10:00 at the Flüela conference hall at the Davos Congress Centre. 

Session objectives

• Highlight disaster-related issues in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region
• Highlight the need for ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction efforts in reducing the vulnerability of mountain communities and ensuring environmental sustainability
• Highlight the importance of regional cooperation in disaster risk reduction
• Learning from multi stakeholder efforts and models of disaster risk reduction in mountain regions in general and the HKH region in particular
• Highlight the need for a disaster management decision support system in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region

Expected outcomes

• Bring issues of mountain-related disasters into the focus of the global discourse on disaster risk reduction efforts
• Convergence of ideas and experiences in disaster risk reduction in the HKH region from a range of stakeholders