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Thank you, thank you, Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, dear friends, it's a pleasure to be with you.

First of all, welcome to Brussels for this dialogue on disaster risk management.

Let me share with you a moment of inspiration.

Last November, I flew over Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa.

And this year I traveled to Venezuela after the devastating earthquakes.

I saw homes destroyed, livelihoods swept away,

but I also saw people already working side by side to help their communities to recover.

That image stayed with me, and I find that a source of inspiration.

That's why we are here today, and it's great to see so many partners,

so many friends from across the Atlantic today. A warm welcome to Mr.

Kosor, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Dear Kamal, thank you very much for being with us.

UNDR has been a key partner in turning the memorandum of understanding between our two regions into action.

Since we signed it in 2024, we have made real progress,

and I think that your presence here today shows that this partnership matters.

Today is a chance to look at how far we have come and where we want to go next indeed,

and as Andrea mentioned, this year's dialogue also marks two important moments.

We are handing over the rotating Secretariat from Cuba and SEPRDENAC to Mexico and the Andean Community,

and I want to thank Cuba and SEPRDNAC for their outstanding.

Work over the past year and I also wish Mexico and the Andean community every success for the coming year.

Of course,

we are recognizing 5 strategic partners who have helped make this agreement work on the ground.

Excellencies, what started as words on paper is becoming a dynamic working partnership.

Countries and regional organizations on both sides of the Atlantic are training together and learning from each other.

We have seen why that matters when disaster strikes.

You know the expression it's easy to be friends when the sun is shining. Hard time revealing your true friends.

Well, Latin America and the Caribbean have a true friend in the European Union.

We are reliable, you can count on us, and that makes all the difference.

When I flew over Jamaica last November, European assistance was already moving across the Atlantic.

Supplies prepositioned in Panama and Barbados were on their way.

6 European countries sent help through our EU civil protection mechanism.

Humanitarian flights carried aid to Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti.

That experience reminds us that trust cannot be built in the middle of a hurricane.

You built it before, so when the storm comes, you know how to work together and how to move fast.

We have also trained together on Copernicus, our satellite system.

My thanks to our colleagues from the Commission's International Partnership Department and the European Space Agency. Satellite images show where floods have spread.

Where roads are cut and where communities are hardest hit.

That gives responders the information they need when every minute counts.

We also welcomed partners to our emergency Response Coordination Centre here in Brussels.

The beating heart of our European crisis response.

These exchanges make us both stronger because every region has hard earned lessons to share. So where do we go from here? Let me focus on 3 main areas.

First, partnership must stay at the heart of this work. I will repeat it again and again.

Preparedness is built before the alarm sounds by people who know and trust each other.

Today we recognize 5 partners, but this is only the beginning.

We should bring more partners into our circle.

There is a huge pool of skills, talent and experience across our two regions. We should just use it. Second, we need to anticipate better.

The Atlantic hurricane season has been quiet so far, but quiet doesn't mean safe.

El Nino is bringing another kind of threat drought and growing pressure on food security. We are deeply concerned about Central America.

In the dry corridor across El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua,

rainfall is 40 to 70% below normal.

Fields are drying out and harvests are at risk.

This year,

the EU has provided over EUR 2.5 million to tackle food insecurity in Guatemala and Honduras.

Today I'm pleased to announce an additional €1 million to help communities in these countries cope with the drought caused by El Nino with emergency cash assistance for food,

clean water, and sanitation support, and in a Team Europe approach,

Spain also announced an additional €500 to support the response to El Nino. Thank you, Europe knows these pressures too.

We are seeing more intense wildfires and heat waves.

This summer was the hottest ever recorded in Western Europe.

So the lesson is the same on both sides of the Atlantic we cannot wait for a crisis to become a catastrophe.

We must warn people earlier, move supplies, earlier,

prepare communities earlier and do it together, across borders. Hurricane Melissa showed why.

Before landfall, Copernicus was already mapping the the areas at risk, and humanitarian partners were moving supplies closer to vulnerable communities,

and that is how we get ahead of a crisis instead of chasing after it.

Third, Latin America and the Caribbean can count on Europe.

For more than 30 years, we have supported disaster preparedness across the region.

We have strengthened early warning systems and helped local communities prepare and respond when disasters strikes. That will continue, of course.

When a disaster is too big for one country,

European assistance comes through our EU civil protection mechanism and the EU humanitarian aid.

We saw this during the last wildfire season.

Several European countries faced some of the worst wildfire seasons in their history.

Our EU civil protection mechanism was stretched,

but we stepped up to help Chile fight its own fires.

Just last weekend, When a powerful earthquake hit Panama,

we immediately activated our Copernicus emergency system to provide damage assessment mapping,

and we were ready to help.

A different disaster, but the same European solidarity.

Saving lives and protecting people, that is our top priority,

and through our relief EU program we get humanitarian supplies to people faster.

We have emergency stocks in Panama and Barbados so that when disaster strikes, blankets,

shelter and other essentials are already in the region and ready to move.

Excellencies, the fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes we face may be different,

but the lesson is the same.

We are all stronger when we prepare together.

We have a strong foundation to build on relationships we can trust and systems that work together when lives are on the line.

There may be An ocean between us, but when disaster strikes, that distance disappears,

and that is what this partnership is all about being ready and being there for each other when it matters most. Thank you.

This is like, OK, I'm like listening and then it, it goes on in itself.

I would like now to, invite Kamal Kishore,

the special representative of the United Nations Secretary General and for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of UNDR for his keynote address. And be careful with the mic. Commissioner Lahbib Excellencies. Colleagues from the Commission.

The sister UN agencies, knowledge partners, strategic partners,

it's really great that we are meeting here today to celebrate this partnership on the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. Very symbolic.

There couldn't have been a better venue and better day for celebrating this wonderful partnership.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Commissioner Lahbib, for your leadership,

the leadership of colleagues at the DG Echo for your enthusiasm for taking this partnership forward.

We have achieved real-world results as a result of,

as a result of this coming together of Latin American and Caribbean signatories and the partners from EU.

And in this whole effort, DG echoes leadership, your deep commitment,

your institutional backing of this whole thing has really created conditions for a step change in the way disaster risk reduction happens in Latin America and the Caribbean. I'm very grateful for this support.

This really helps us advance our advance and accelerate the implementation of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction,

and I hope that we will continue to nurture and sustain this partnership.

I think it's also a time to congratulate the the two partners who have steered this in the last few years, Cuba and Septac, and before that,

Sirima in Chile,

and today we will see that this baton is being transferred to Mexico and the General Secretariat of the Andean Community. I think you are the real drivers.

You're the stakeholders, drivers, your vision which really drives this partnership,

and we at UNDR are very committed.

We are very proud to play our role in facilitating this wonderful partnership.

It is really something which is going to help Latin America and the Caribbean in deeper ways.

We are looking at how it supports disaster risk reduction,

but ultimately what we do in terms of achieving resilience in these countries creates conditions for human flourishing in these countries.

It helps us address many of the fundamental development challenges as well.

Today's discussion is on early warning and early action, and in that context,

I just want to say that there are 7 targets in Sendai framework. One of the targets is on achieving.

You know, almost universal coverage, universal coverage of early warning systems across the world.

The UN Secretary General launched his initiative on early warnings for all in 2022 to cover the whole planet with access to early warning by 2027. It's really one of the keystone targets.

If you do not achieve 100% coverage on early warning, you do not achieve other targets in the Sendai framework. You do not achieve reduction in mortality. You do not achieve reduction in economic.

Impact, you do not achieve reduction in number of people affected and infrastructure disruptions,

so it's really important that we focus on this.

It's not that Latin America does not have capacities in forecasting and warning.

There's a lot of resident capacity as well which can be augmented with the kinds of partnerships this MOU is facilitating.

Just earlier today we had a discussion between LA Partners and Copernicus how we are Applying Copernicus, Commissioner Lahbib just mentioned how Copernicus was actually utilized at the time of Hurricane Melissa in anticipating not just where the hurricane will occur,

but what is the kind of damage it will do and how we can take preventive actions.

So it's really the test is in turning these capabilities into action on the ground which we are beginning to see now and protecting lives and livelihoods.

All of this discussion is happening in the context of And El Nino,

an extremely strong El Nino, the media likes to call it Super El Nino.

It is often said that it will be the strongest El Nino in the last 50 years, some say even 100 years.

Whatever it is,

we are already beginning to see its impact being played out across the world and particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

I have been to the region twice this year.

I saw how the Panama Canal, for example, is preparing for the El Nino because the two freshwater lakes which supply water to the Panama Canal are going to be affected by drier conditions,

and they need to Plan ahead for that.

I see how the impacts are playing out in terms of dry spring and summer season this year in Cuba and Haiti,

how drought is affecting Colombia. So this is already at our doorstep.

And so work that this partnership is doing and has been doing over the last few years will really come in handy.

The El Nino is strong, but the impact do not have to be strong.

There is no inevitability about it, as Commissioner Lahbib said.

It is your first point that we have to do everything in anticipation.

We don't have to wait till the impacts begin to begin to appear on the ground and then taking reactive actions.

So in that context, I have only 3 suggestions to make.

My first suggestion is that work on early warning for all, early warning,

early action, also in the context of El Nino must take a dynamic approach. We learn more things. We continue to modify our approaches.

We must draw lessons from every disaster event and see how early warning system worked or did not work, how we can improve it,

what worked, which needs to be consolidated and institutionalized, and what is it that needs to be improved.

It also means dynamically responding to forecasts as they become.

Become more refined, you know, for example, we've been working with the WFP and very pleased to see colleagues here,

WMO NFAO and UNDP and Development Coordination Office and NCCA to look at how do we respond to seasonal forecasts of El Nino,

what is it that is that it is telling us for the next few weeks and months?

What should be the response that the government should lead, but this is something which is not.

That you design an approach in September and you just sort of are locked into that.

You revise it as you know more every month.

So I think that dynamic approach is really essential.

The second point is that When Commissioner Lubi was talking,

she really make this whole thing come alive in terms of how widespread the impacts are across multiple sectors.

So that means that our approach to managing these risks also has to be multi-sectorial. It's not just a problem of water. It's not just a problem of agriculture. It's not just a problem of food. It is also a problem of energy.

It is also a problem of supply chain.

It is also a problem of public health.

So it's really important that we Apply early warnings for multiple sectors and not just for one or two sectors where the impacts may be sometimes more visible and in this context,

the partnerships,

the partnership that this and partners and technical capacities that this partnership brings together is really well placed to have that kind of holistic multi-sectorial approach.

And my third point, it sounds a little bit cliched, over-repeated, but it cannot be repeated enough,

which is that we really have to keep the people in the mind.

It's ultimately about people who are most vulnerable, whose needs we have to meet, we have to meet. They are they are our ultimate clients.

Our success will not be measured by how wonderful our forecasts were,

how beautiful our maps were, how vivid our projection of likely impacts was.

The effectiveness of our work will be measured by the farmer,

the manager of a reservoir who has to manage variability in water availability. How well did we meet their needs? They are, they are.

Our clients and we really have to service their needs.

It's not for our own satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction. It's for them.

So I think this is a point we have to make again and again.

And in this whole thing, how do we make sure that We are looking at men and women.

We are looking at the needs of persons with disability.

There is a lot of accumulated experience right in this room which we must bring to bear to ensure that our work really makes a difference for the most vulnerable people in the region.

If we did these three things,

I think we will have even more to celebrate when we meet the next time to take stock of this partnership. I hope the next. Phase of the MOU. We will continue to move ahead.

We will deepen our cooperation, deepen our work in disaster risk reduction as part of all development sectors.

The other thing I want to say is that this is,

to my mind, one of the most unique partnerships across the ocean.

Commissioner Lahbib said that when risk appears on the horizon, there is no distance.

Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean come together.

I think that kind of interregional partnership is something I wish would happen in other regions as well,

and I would invite you to come to.

The regional platform for the Americas and the Caribbean 8th to 11th of March in a very beautiful place called the Bahamas to talk about this and then later to talk about this also at the global platform which will take place in 2028 because I think this kind of interregional partner.

In a world where everything is contested, everything is trying to divide people,

this is a fantastic example of how we can have global solidarity around a common cause,

and we must not keep it a secret in this room.

We must take this message to the world. Thank you very much.