A project aimed at strengthening disaster preparedness (with a focus on flooding) by improving early warning and early response systems has been launched in Plateau State.
The 2-year project, launched by Christian Aid, an international development agency with funding support from the European Union, will contribute to improved emergency preparedness, timeliness and quality of risk information and response actions for multiple natural hazards by communities, governments and non-governmental organizations in a coordinated manner.
These will be achieved by building community resilience and preparedness to flooding disaster, designing contingency plans for response, strengthening coordination among agencies of government mandated to respond to such disasters.
As part of the start-up of the project, a state-level stakeholders meeting was held in Jos recently to discuss the project, its goals and objectives collaborative and partnership models, including implementation and coordination strategies.
The stakeholders include the Plateau State Emergency Management Agency(SEMA) and its national counterpart, NEMA, Red Cross, the state ministries of information, environment and local government, the fire service, the state traditional council, among others.
The project will cover three floods -prone communities in 3 local government areas of Jos North, Jos East and Shendam.
Meanwhile, community disaster mitigation and management platforms are being set in the selected communities which will be responsible for coordination of disaster management and mitigation, and risk reduction initiatives at community level, including response and community capacity.
