The Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020: First Signatories

The 19th session of the Board of Representatives of the International Consortium on Landslides (BOR/ICL), the 14th session of the Global Promotion Committee of the International Programme on Landslides (GPC/IPL), the meeting of the organizing committee of the Fifth World Landslide Forum, and the IPL Symposium on Landslides were held at Room IX, Fontenoy Building, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, on 16–19 September 2019.

• The BOR/ICL has selected by vote Nicola Casagli, University of Florence, Italy, as the incoming President of ICL (1 January 2021–31 December 2023).

• The GPC/IPL has decided by vote the location of the next 6th World Landslide Forum, 2023, to be the city of Florence, Italy, and its organizer to be the UNESCO Chair for the prevention and the sustainable management of geo-hydrological hazards, University of Florence, and the Italian National Network of the International Consortium on Landslides.

• The Organizing Committee of the Fifth World Landslide Forum has decided that 9 volumes of full color books will be published as a new ICL book series, “ICL contribution to landslide disaster risk reduction” (ISSN 2662-1894 for the print version and ISSN 2662-1908 for the electronic version).

The book title is Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk.

Subtitles for the 9 volumes are as follows:

• Vol. 1 Sendai Landslide Partnerships and Kyoto Landslide Commitment,

• Vol. 2-1 Landslide hazard assessment and zonation,

• Vol. 2-2 Landslide inventory mapping and vulnerability assessment,

• Vol. 3 Monitoring and early warning,

• Vol. 4 Testing, modeling and risk assessment,

• Vol. 5 Education and capacity development for risk management and risk governance,

• Vol. 6 Catastrophic landslides: causes and consequences,

• Vol. 7 Frontiers of landslide science and innovative practices, and

• Vol. 8 Specific topics in landslide science and applications.

Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020

The 14th session of the GPC/IPL started with opening remarks by Ms. Peggy Oti-Boateng, acting Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences and Director of Science Policy and Capacity-Building Division, Natural Sciences Sector, UNESCO, and Mr. Keiji Inoue, Minister, Permanent Delegation of Japan to UNESCO.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Peggy Oti-Boateng looked back at the long continuous cooperation between UNESCO and ICL, recalling the following:

ICL was founded by the UNESCO-Kyoto University Joint Symposium in January 2002 in Kyoto, Japan. The UNESCO, Kyoto University, and ICL established the UNITWIN Cooperation Programme on Landslide Risk Mitigation for Society and Environment in March 2003. UNESCO and ICL exchanged MoU “Concerning Strengthening Cooperation in Research and Learning on Earth System Risk Analysis and Sustainable Disaster Management within the Framework of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Regarding the Implementation of the 2006 Tokyo Action Plan on Landslides” in August 2006. ICL was approved to be an NGO having operational relations with UNESCO in April 2007. It was reclassified as an NGO with a consultative partnership with UNESCO in March 2012. Furthermore, UNESCO was instrumental in promoting and joining the ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 for Global Promotion of Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk, which was formed at the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in 2015 in Sendai, Japan.

Finally, she expressed her cordial welcome to all participants and her best wishes for the success of the upcoming Fifth World Landslide Forum in November 2020 and the launching of the Kyoto 2020 Commitment for Global Promotion of Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk (Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, KLC2020).

Mr. Keiji Inoue, as Minister of the Japanese Permanent Delegation to UNESCO and on behalf of Japan, the host country of ICL as well as the Fifth World Landslide Forum (WLF5), extended his cordial wishes for the success of the WLF5 held in November 2020 in Kyoto, Japan, and his all-out support for the establishment of the long-term global framework for promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk, the “Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020”.

Participants examined the final draft of KLC2020 adopted in the 2018 ICL-IPL Conference at the Kyoto International Conference Center in Kyoto, Japan, on 1–4 December 2018 (Sassa 2019a). All participants approved the KLC2020, and the KLC2020 partners have signed the documents then and there (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

A joint photo of signatories after signing the KLC2020 at Room IX of the Fontenoy Building at UNESCO, Paris. Ms. Peggy Oti-Boateng, acting Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences and Director of Science Policy and Capacity-Building Division, Natural Sciences Sector, UNESCO, who had to leave before the joint photo is seen in the left corner. Thirty-seven participating signatories of KLC2020, Mr. Keiji Inoue (Minister of Japanese Permanent Delegation to UNESCO), and Mr. Kyoji Sassa as KLC2020 secretary (Secretary General of ICL) are seen in a sitting row and two standing rows

Planned schedule for the KLC2020 process after the 2019 UNESCO conference

ICL alongside with ICL supporting organizations and KLC2020 partners will organize the Kyoto Commitment preparation meeting, the WLF5 Organizing Committee and ICL Steering Committee meeting on 18–20 April 2020 in Kyoto, Japan. The second group of signatories of KLC2020 (between 18 September 2019 and 19 April 2020) will be identified on 19 April 2020.

Schedule:

Date	Time	Programme (draft)
18 April 2020 (Sat)	9:30–17:00	ICL Steering Committee Meeting: Strategy after WLF5 2020
19 April 2020 (Sun)	9:30–17:00	Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 Preparation Meeting Signature of KLC 2020 (second group), planning for the high-level panel discussion for the implementation of KLC2020
20 April 2020 (Mon)	9:30–17:00	WLF5 Organizing Committee Meeting Programming of all themes and sessions of WLF5

Venue: Large seminar room (R301) in the Collaborative Research Hub of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University

The list of the third group of signatories (between 19 April and 2 November 2020) will be identified on 2 November 2020 at the Kyoto International Conference Center. Finally, the high-level panel discussion, scheduled for 10:00–12:00 on 3 November 2020, will declare the launching of the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020.

KCL2020 partners will be ICL members (full members, associate members, and supporters), partners of Sendai Landslide Partnerships (ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships) 2015–2025, governments of nations of ICL members, and international societies that contribute to WLF5 and KLC2020. All partners are organizations having some aspects of activities related to understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk as their intrinsic missions. The first group of signatories (Table 1) calls on wide-ranging participation of the second and third groups of signatories for the success of the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020. It is highly appreciated that those wishing to join the 2nd or 3rd group of signatories contact the secretary of KLC 2020 (secretariat@iclhq.org).

Table 1 List of first signatories of the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020 (18 September 2019). The signatories include 6 United Nations and international organizations, 3 government organizations other than ICL members, and 48 ICL member organization including ICL headquarters

KLC2020 Intergovernmental Panel

The purpose of the KLC2020 is the global promotion of understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk. KLC2020 partners include researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. Researchers contribute to the understanding of landslide disaster risk, policy-makers contribute to the reduction of landslide disaster risk, and practitioners work and cooperate from both aspects. While the ICL indeed includes 9 governmental member organizations, the majority of the ICL members are not policy-makers.

The title of the high-level panel discussion in WLF4 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2017 was “Strengthening Intergovernmental Network and the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) for ISDR-ICL Sendai Partnerships 2015–2025 for Global Promotion of Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk”. The adopted Ljubljana Declaration advanced the idea of the Kyoto 2020 Commitment for Global Promotion of Understanding and Reducing Landslide Disaster Risk. In pursuance to this discussion, the KLC2020 proposes considering the development of an Intergovernmental Panel on Landslide Risk Reduction in the framework of KLC2020 within the International Programme on Landslides (IPL). Concept and management of the KLC2020 Intergovernmental Panel on Landslide Risk Reduction will be examined in April 2020 in Kyoto, and at the high-level panel discussion on 3 November 2020 at the Fifth World Landslide Forum.

The panel would offer a common discussion platform for both researchers and policy-makers in reducing landslide disaster risk based on the updated understanding of landslide disaster risk. We will call for the KLC2020 partners who will form the second group of signatories in April 2020 and the third group of signatories at WLF5, respectively, to join and sign as representatives of government sectors as well as NGOs and academia.

Commitment to KLC2020

A commitment such as the “Kyoto 2020 Commitment” expands and strengthens a declaration such as the 2017 Ljubljana Declaration. KLC2020 does not require any additional works or responsibilities from the partners other than their own intrinsic works/mandates. All KLC2020 partners are those organizations who already have division(s)/entity(ies) whose intrinsic missions are related to understand and reduce landslide disaster risk. Accordingly, their success in carrying out their missions is in itself the successful commitment to KLC2020.

Call for contribution to journal Landslides

ICL created a new category of News/Kyoto Commitment in 2018 as a common platform for KLC2020. All partners of KLC2020 are invited to contribute to the journal Landslides their past, present, and future activities; announcement of planned meetings/schools; construction works for landslide disaster risk; or recent landslides within 4 printed pages. Any progress in the landslide disaster risk reduction in each country will be a good resource to other partners. All news published in Landslides are widely distributed worldwide and all articles can be easily accessed any time for more than 10 years. All articles published in Landslides may include full color photos and figures, with neither contribution fee nor color printing fee. Landslides is the contribution from ICL to the world landslide community. And News/Kyoto Commitment is the contribution from ICL to KLC2020 partners. Please refer to the past articles of News/Kyoto Commitment in Sassa (2019b).