By Rita Iliya
Minna, – The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has called on government and NGOs to come up with measures that would promote disaster mitigation and management in the country.
NEMA Head of Minna Operation Office, Mrs Lydia Wagami, in a statement in Minna on Sunday gave the advice at the commemoration of the 2019 International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR).
IDDR is a day set aside by the United Nations to focus on how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters and the importance of reigning in the risk.
Wagami urged relevant stakeholders to come up with a disaster mitigation and management approach that would reduce damages on social infrastructures.
According to her, the call is in line with the theme for this year’s IDDR titled “Reduce Disaster Damage to Critical Infrastructure and Disruption of Basic Services”.
She said the theme was a continuation of the “Sendai Seven” campaign, which centres on the seven targets of Sendai Framework.
“The aim is to focus on the target of the Sendai framework which highlights substantially to reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, such as health and education.’’
Wagami stated that the framework sought to develop the resilience of communities in order to prevent or reduce the damage on infrastructure.
She called for active participation of government and NGOs for the protection of social infrastructures across the state.
According to her, communities should be more active in both structural and non-structural mitigation of disasters in the state.
She said that there had been an improvement in the management of flood disaster in the state compared to the previous years.
“The improvement was as a result of adherence of communities to early warnings and signals. The agency had conducted assessment of the affected areas to give support to cushion their sufferings,’’ she said. (NAN)