"Some 90 experts in early warning systems and natural disaster risk management met at a United Nations symposium in Geneva today to strengthen global mechanisms, especially for less developed countries, that have already helped to reduce the number of fatalities by nearly two-thirds at a time when such catastrophes have increased four-fold.

"From 1980 to 2005, over 7,000 natural disasters worldwide have taken the lives of nearly 2 million people and produced economic losses of over $1 trillion," UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told the Symposium on Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems for Integrated Disaster Risk Management, convened by his agency.

The Symposium, bringing together of 18 agencies involved in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), is co-sponsored by The UN Development Programme (UNDP), the ISDR, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Bank." [Read more]