By resolution 44/236 (22 December 1989), the General Assembly designated the second Wednesday of October International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction.
The International Day was to be observed annually during the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, 1990-1999.
By resolution 64/200 of 21 December 2009 the General Assembly decided to designate 13 October as the date to commemorate the Day and to change the Day’s name to International Day for Disaster Reduction.
The objective of the observance is to raise awareness of how people are taking action to reduce their risk to disasters.
2016 Theme: Live To Tell: Raising Awareness, Reducing Mortality.
The 2016 edition marks the launch of the new “Sendai Seven” campaign by UNISDR, centred on the seven targets of the Sendai Framework, the first of which is reducing disaster mortality.