Cebu town wins UN award for climate change campaign

MANILA, Philippines - A small municipality in Cebu has won the United Nations Sasakawa Award for 2011 for actions to reduce the damaging effects of climate change on their communities, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction’s (UNISDR) said Tuesday.

 The municipality of San Francisco, Camotes Islands won among numerous nominees globally for the campaign on safe municipalities.

The award will be given by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in Geneva on May 10 during the opening ceremonies of the 3rd Session of the Global Platform.

The Sasakawa Award includes a cash prize of US$ 50,000 plus a trophy. The winning municipality intends to use the cash prize for its project to plant two million trees.

Last year, government officials from vulnerable islands in the Philippines took action to reduce the damaging effects of climate change on their communities by joining UNISDR’s world disaster reduction campaign.

In a ceremony in December on the beaches of the Camotes Islands in Cebu, four mayors signed the Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready campaign, bringing the number of mayors committed to the two-year international campaign to 156.

The mayors are Aly Arquillano of San Francisco municipality; Luciano Rama, Jr. of Poro Municipality; Erwin Yu of Tudela municipality; and Jesus Fernandez, Jr. of Pilar municipality.

By joining the campaign, the mayors commit to a number of activities, including relocating communities and key infrastructure that are prone to storm surges, regular clean-up drives along coastal areas, tree planting, establishment of early warning systems, strengthening the Camotes Islands emergency response teams, developing community-based ecotourism and livelihood initiatives, and training teachers and youth organizations on climate change and disaster risk reduction.

The Camotes Islands group is facing increasing threats to its coastal mangrove forests, seagrass and corals as a result of increasing storm surges, sea-level rise, coral bleaching, overfishing and coastal development

To combat these threats, the local government, in partnership with Plan Philippines, is promoting a climate risk management project in the island group that incorporates disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation practices through better governance, knowledge management, reduction of underlying risks and small-scale mitigation activities

The project has a child-centered focus.

UNISDR launched the worldwide disaster reduction campaign in May 2010, enlisting local government leaders to commit to 10 essential actions to reduce disaster risks. These actions include investing more in disaster risk reduction, preparing and sharing risk assessments, ensuring early warning systems are in place, and protecting ecosystems to reduce floods, cyclones and storm surge impacts.

Cities and municipalities the world over have joined the campaign and are committed to complying with one or more of the Ten Essentials. Among them are Mexico City (Mexico), Durban (South Africa), Bogota (Colombia), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Amman, (Jordan), Albay (the Philippines), Cairns (Australia), Chennai City (India), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Saint Louis (Senegal).