Ghana To Mark World Disaster Day

Accra,(Greater Accra Region) 29, Sept. Ghana will celebrate, for the first time, the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction Day (IDNDR) on Wednesday, October eight, Mr Kofi Portuphy, National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), said today. Mr Portuphy told a press conference in Accra that Ghana is joining other members of the UN to mark the day after enacting Act 517 to establish a national disaster policy. The United Nations in 1989 declared the 1990's as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, a period for creating in UN member-countries, the awareness of the increasing number and impacts of disasters and the need to prevent them or mitigate their effects. As a measure for ensuring the realisation of IDNDR objective, the UN set aside every second Wednesday of October, as the World Disaster Day. The International theme is ''Water Too Much, Too Little, the leading cause of Natural Disasters''. Ghana 's sub-theme is: ''Disaster Preparedness for a Safer World.'' Mr Portuphy said before the enactment of Act 517 of 1996, the defunct Disaster Relief Committees failed to meet the UN's standard requirements for disaster management because it had no legal backing.