Upper East Region marks International Day for Disaster Reduction

Bolgatanga, Oct. 11, GNA - Mr Alhassan Samari, Upper East Regional Minister on Thursday called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to plan and come out with pragmatic measures to deal with disaster prevention.

He made the call at this year's International Day for Disaster Reduction celebration in Bolgatanga, under the theme "Safer Schools and Disaster Reduction Education"

Mr Samari noted that Ghana's dream of achieving a middle-income status by 2015 would become a mirage when it failed to address the issue of disaster prevention.

He urged assemblies to collaborate and support the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) in the campaign to ensure safety standards and other measures geared towards the reduction of risk and disasters in the society.

Mr Samari said most disasters were caused by blatant disregard for rules and regulations by Ghanaians and lack of enforcement of laws by accredited statutory institutions.

Mr Samari suggested the need to empower law enforcement agencies by revising some of the laws and providing the needed resources for effective and efficient implementation of laws that would address disaster prevention.

He said government was concerned about the flood that affected the region last August and determined to help the victims with food and housing.

Disaster reduction, Mr Samari noted, must be seen as a shared responsibility of government, NGOs, civil society organizations and the citizenry.

Ms Christina Amarchey, Programme Manager of Action Aid, explained that the theme for this year's celebration was to highlight the unique role education could play in building a culture of safety and resilience at all levels.

Ms Amarchey called on government to demonstrate commitment and leadership in promoting a culture of safety using schools and education to change behaviour at all levels. She said this could be done through integrating teaching on local risks and hazards into the education curriculum, increase the physical safety and resilience of school buildings and incorporating disaster reduction in informal education.

Ms Amarchey appealed to government to invest more in human resource development in building up local government capacity on disaster risk reduction and make greater investment in local analysis on risk and vulnerability to promote community contribution to disaster risk reduction.

The celebration is to offer Ghana and the world an opportunity to review its achievements on the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) and measures to accelerate its implementation. The HFA was a disaster conference held in Japan to strategise on how to curb and manage disasters. Most of the pupils who participated in the celebration went on a route march with placards that had the inscriptions, "We want Integrated Disaster Issues in our School Curriculum", "Disaster Prevention is better than Management", "Stop farming along river banks", "Disasters impede development", "Grow a tree today Save Life Tomorrow". It was sponsored by Action Aid and facilitated by Centre for Community Development Initiatives (CODI).