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African countries are meeting in South Africa this week to plan a regional strategy for reducing their vulnerability to disasters.
In conjunction with the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the African Union (AU) and the African Development Bank, the two-day conference will prepare a regional strategy for the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, to be held in Japan next year.
"Many African countries, like Zambia, have an excellent disaster response mechanism in place, but they lack the tools to put up a long-term prevention mechanism," Kenneth Westgate, Regional Disaster Reduction Adviser for Africa in the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, told IRIN. The UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction is providing technical assistance to the region in developing the strategy.
A draft document of the African position, which will be discussed at the meeting, pointed out that disaster risk reduction was yet to be "effectively institutionalised in Africa", largely because of the lack of capacity and financial support.
Governments have a key responsibility to create an environment where people can be empowered to prevent or reduce natural disaster risks, said the document.
Some of the critical issues on the agenda in the next two days are integrating disaster risk reduction in development and increasing public awareness of "the kind of disasters they might be vulnerable to, for example the effect of food insecurity in a community affected by HIV/AIDS or poverty," said Westgate.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
