Mar.7-9, 2025
Mar.7-9, 2025
In 2015, in Sendai, Japan, the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) formulated and agreed on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, a set of international guidelines for efforts related to disaster reduction. The Framework incorporates many of the concepts promoted in Japan, such as the importance of investment in disaster reduction and the need to "Build Back Better” after a disaster event. With its long experience with disasters and as a world leader in the field of disaster reduction, Japan takes a special interest to promote the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Furthermore, the experience of Japan and the Tohoku region in the process of recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011, has attracted great interest from around the world.
However, while there have been a variety of international conferences on disaster risk reduction held around the world, including UN-led and academic conferences, there are few international "forums" where specific solutions to reduce damage from disasters can be focused, shared, and discussed.
Therefore, we decided to establish a forum in Sendai to propose solutions for disaster risk reduction from various perspectives, both domestic and international, industry, government, academia, and civil society, to learn from each other, to create new values, and to promote the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. This is the World Bosai Forum.
"Bosai" is a term that refers to efforts at all stages of a disaster, including disaster preparedness, risk mitigation investment, emergency response after a disaster, and recovery and reconstruction stages. By translating disaster risk reduction in Japanese into English as "Bosai", we aim to emphasise the holistic nature of risk reduction and to integrate the concept of disaster risk reduction into policies, societies and cultures around the world. This integration is sometimes referred to as "mainstreaming disaster risk reduction".
Sendai, Japan
| The official Name of the Conference | World Bosai Forum 2025 |
|---|---|
| Scheduled Date | March 7 to 9, 2025 |
| Venue | Sendai International Center Aobayama, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi 980-0856, Japan |
| Organizer | World Bosai Forum Local Organizing Committee/World Bosai Forum International Steering Committee |
| Co-organizer | Tohoku University |
| Partnership | Cabinet Office / Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan / Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism / Reconstruction Agency / Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology / Aomori Prefecture / Iwate Prefecture / Fukushima Prefecture / Japan Science and Technology Agency |
The key visual of WBF2025 focuses on the concepts of "Increasing Disaster Risks Due to Global Warming and Climate Change" and "Future Prospects."
The warm color gradient in the background visually symbolizes the progression of global warming. The depiction of disasters at increased risk due to climate change, such as heavy rains, wind gusts, droughts, extreme heat, and desertification, underscores the complex interplay of natural hazards in this modern environment.
WBF2025 aims to be an international forum that brings together the knowledge of industry, academia, and citizens on disaster risk reduction across national borders and seeks future prospects through behavior change.
Poster design： Mikio Odaka
Ono-kun is a cute stuffed toy knitted with stuffing socks, and appears casually in the World Bosai Forum. The origin of Ono-kun can be traced back to the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s. It is said that the "sox-monkeys" started when a mother stuffed old socks with rags and sewed them together as toys, at a time when many people were in poverty and could not buy toys for their children.
After the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, the idea caught the hearts of women in Rikuzen-Ono, Higashimatsushima, who were residing in temporary shelters, leading to the birth of a Japanese-made sock monkey called Ono-kun. In temporary housing, there is little but what is given. These women, who had suffered from the disaster, had a strong desire to do something by themselves for others, and set about making hundreds of different Ono-kuns.
Mr. Ono, who heads the World Bosai Forum, visited these women and was appointed by them as a goodwill ambassador of Ono-kun.
Ono-kuns will not be involved in the World Bosai Forum as a yuru-chara (mascot) but appear casually in consideration of his favorite word “mendokushe (bothersome!)”.
