THIS REPORT WAS prepared for the 1996 World Disaster Reduction Day (9 October 1996), along with a poster and a special issue of Stop Disasters magazine on “disaster reduction in urban systems”. As well as highlighting why far more attention needs to be paid to reducing risks, Cities At Risk includes 11 short case studies of initiatives to reduce risks. These include the Quito Metropolitan System for Risk Mitigation and Emergency
Response, the ways in which risk management has been incorporated into education and into the programmes of different community organizations and government bodies in Medellin and community-level initiatives to reduce risks of floods in South Africa. The report also includes a section on policies for safer cities and a list of local, national and international contacts.

IDNDR also ran an Internet Conference on Solutions for Cities at Risk between 26 August and 25 October 1996. This included a large number of papers available through the Internet and comments and discussions between different participants. Although the Conference has ended, the papers can still be obtained. For more details, see the World Wide Web site: http://www.quipu.net:1996/ [1]