Director, Finance and Accounts, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Hakeen Akinbola (left) handing over to the New Director-General of NEMA, Mustapha Maihaja in Abuja PHOTO: NAN
Ahead of the global talks in Cancun, Mexico next month, stakeholders have approved three documents that will assist Nigeria to fulfill requirements for the 15-year Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).
The framework provides the way forward to prevent and reduce disaster risk in order to achieve resilient and sustainable development.Under the leadership of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and embracing all actors at all levels, the Sendai framework offers a solution to saving lives, livelihoods and assets as well as reducing the fiscal burden on government.
Specifically, Nigeria’s stakeholders met last week in a two-day workshop in Keffi, Nasarawa State, organised by NEMA with the support of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and validated the National Plan of Action on the implementation on Sendai Framework on DRR, structure and framework for the national Platform on DRR and National Policy on Disaster Risk Reduction.
The documents provide broad policy direction to guide the implementation of the Sendai Framework in the context of the 2030 sustainable development agendas; long term road map, spanning the 15-year horizon of the Sendai Framework outlining a chronological pathway for implementation of priorities to achieve seven global targets.
Earlier, NEMA Director General, Mustapha Maihaja, an engineer, urged participants to make inputs and observation in order to validate the three documents that will assist disaster management in the country.
He recalled that the third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, adopted the Sendai framework for Action, which replaced the Hygo Framework for Action.
According to him, the adoption of the document brought with it challenges that call for all stakeholders in disaster risk reduction to critically examine the document with a view to identifying appropriate implementation strategies.
Maihaja further recalled that Nigeria has instituted the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2010 as an off shoot of the global platform for disaster risk reduction, and organised the National Platform early in the year, where it was resolved to set up a technical committee to produce a working structure for the National platform and to develop a National Programme of Action for the implementation of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030.
Meanwhile, at the validation workshop, UNDP Nigeria reaffirmed its believe in the crucial role of a fully functional National Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction in Nigeria, noting that the workshop will lay a good foundation for better multi stakeholder response and management of disasters in the country.
One of the consultants, Mr. Soji Adeniyi said risk reduction management is essential. He called on governments to enlighten people on disaster prevention.Adeniyi, urged politicians to key into NEMA’s disaster risk reduction by ensuring that issues related to disaster management, such as awareness, preparedness and response are taken seriously in policy making.
Another expert, Linda Akpami argued that Nigeria has quality data in compliance to international standards.Citing air pollution pilot study by World Bank in Lagos, she maintained that though it was an intervention-monitoring project, the outputs were reliable, but it cannot solve environmental problems.
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