By Felix Igbekoyi
Correspondent, Asaba
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is particular about building capacities of communities to make them resilient to disasters in the face of uncertainties associated with climate change and human activities.
Coordinator of NEMA in the South-South zone, Mr. Benjamin Oghenah, said this in Asaba during a workshop on ‘Building Resilience of Communities’ organised by the agency for stakeholders in emergency management.
Oghenah observed that every community has a capacity of resilience, advocating need to identify such capacity and strengthen it for the community to be able to withstand and cope with disasters.
“This capacity may consist of physical or material resources, social, organisational resources, knowledge, skills, attitudes and motivation.
“Developing the capacity of communities to enhance their resilience to disaster can involve public education, training, social mobilisation, technical assistance and provision of materials.
“More often than not also, successful community actions can be hinge on low technology approaches that are easily and economically adoptable by communities,” he explained.
He said the workshop was organised in collaboration with the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to brainstorm on the best approach to strengthen the capacity of communities in building their resilience to disasters.
According to him, communities and their assets have become exposed to the impacts of hazards owing to climate change, unplanned urbanisation, environmental degradation, population growth, oil exploration activities and poverty.
“This increasing vulnerability and the subsequent increase in number of disasters is becoming worrisome for stakeholders in emergency management.
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