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Practical Information

The Conference secretariat prepared a Conference handbook,  an information note and a note with all Conference important contact details to provide information about the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction and related arrangements. 

Travel 

Sendai is approximately 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of Honshu (the largest of Japan's four major islands). Sendai lies in the centre of the Tohoku (northeast) Region, one of the seven major regions in Japan. It takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes to reach Sendai from Tokyo on the Tohoku Bullet Train (Tohoku Shinkansen). Sendai also has regular flights to and from major domestic and international cities.

Accommodation

For details on accommodation, please visit the Sendai accommodation website. 

Visa Information 

The following documents were necessary to apply for a Visa:
 - Passport or equivalent traveling documents (Holders of United Nations Laissez-Passers from Visa waiver countries will be allowed to enter Japan without obtaining a Visa only when possessing his/her valid national passport. Diplomatic / Official passport holders are advised to contact the diplomatic missions to check the necessity of Visas to Japan)
 - Application form with photo  (note that you do not need to fill in "gurarantor" or " inviter" information on the application form)
 - Letter proving your registration to the WCDRR (confirmation letter issued from eAccredit, CSOnet, Media accreditation system, or Visa letter issued from UNISDR)
-  Certificate of employment (participants registered through CSOnet, and media accreditation system)

For participants registered through the eAccredit system, CSOnet system, and media accreditation system, the letters generated from the respective systems will serve as Visa documentation. Print out copies and bring to the nearest Japanese diplomatic mission (embassy, consulate, etc.) together with and supporting documents described above. Associate members of regional commissions requiring Visas should indicate their email addresses in the letter of nomination to ensure that they receive the email approvals.

For participants registered by exchange of emails (UN secretariat, funds, programmes and other entities),  send an email to wcdrr2015@un.org with your name, gender, title, and organization name for all members. Add title “[Visa letter request] (name)”.

Those who were not registered for the conference are asked to obtain Visas using the normal procedure. Invitation letters will not be issued from the secretariat.  

Request for meeting rooms

Meetings of regional and other major groups of States, as well as bilateral meetings were accommodated subject to the availability of meeting rooms and services. Requests was sent by e-mail to wcdrr2015@un.org, indicating in the subject line “Room request, WCDRR Conference”, the date, type of the relevant meeting, number of participants and the entity requesting the meeting room must be stated in the email. Rooms for bilateral meetings were available throughout the day during the period of the conference. For all other meeting requests noted above, rooms were available every morning between 8:00 a.m.– 9:30 a.m. and occasionally during lunch time i.e 01:30 p.m. - 02:30 p.m. 

For bilateral meetings among States at the Head of State or Government or ministerial level, requests could be sent to wcdrr2015@un.org. To prevent double booking, only the delegation initiating the bilateral meeting could submit the request. Reservations were accepted for 20-minute durations. It was essential that all requests specify the date and time of each meeting, and include the name of the other delegation participating in the bilateral meeting and expected number of participants. Limited rooms, of varying sizes with a capacity to hold between eight, ten or twelve participants in total, were available for bilateral meetings. Every effort was made to keep consecutive appointments of the same delegation in the same room.

Conference Venue

The main conference venue was the Sendai International Center together with a new convention facility annexed to the Center. The construction of a new convention facility, which was located adjacent to the Sendai International Center, was completed in December 2014. Other facilities located in Sendai city were used by partners for public events.

Sendai

Sendai, with a population of one million, is the political and economic centre of the Tohoku Region in the northeast of Japan. Known as a modern city in harmony with nature, Sendai is called the ‘City of Trees’. Sendai has many universities and is well known as an academic city. Its universities and research institutes have contributed significantly to the development of the high-tech industry. The average temperature in March is fairly cool (10°C / 50.0°F).

For more information about Sendai, visit:

Sendai was recognized in October 2012 as a role model for the Making Cities Resilient Campaign, coordinated by UNISDR, for "promoting community-based disaster risk reduction and empowering people to act on disaster risk reduction”.

Tohoku Region

The Tohoku region occupies the north-eastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region consists of six prefectures: Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata.

The Tohoku Region was hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011 and the ensuing accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Read more about the reconstruction of disaster-affected areas and the concerted efforts to revitalize the Tohoku Region:

© 2014 UNISDR