11th May, 2014
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has decried the low institutional capability in data generation, risk analysis and early warning services in disaster management in the country.
It also decried inadequate funding of the agencies at the grassroots level.
This was contained in a statement signed by the agency’s Public Information’s officer, Ibrahim Farinloye in Lagos on Sunday.
The statement said Director General of NEMA, Alhaji Muhammad Sani-Sidi, highlighted these as some of the challenges facing the nation’s emergency management at the International Symposium of Integrated Disaster Risk Governance held in Beijing, China.
Sani-Sidi also said they were part of the challenges hampering effective and efficient disaster risk reduction and emergency management in the country.
He said that there was low level of disaster risk participation at the local government areas and communities where only 53 out of the 774 Local government of Nigeria had some semblance of emergency management institution.
He also identified inadequate equipment for critical stakeholders for effective preparedness and response as a major challenge whereby fire service stations were far below the recommended numbers par communities
Sani-Sidi said that Nigeria, through NEMA, had been working in all the priority areas, most especially in the areas of institutional framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).
Others areas are on risk assessment, monitoring and early warnings, disaster education and capacity building as well as preparedness – disaster plans, drills and stakeholder engagement and coordination.
“In Africa, Nigeria is one of the foremost countries with high level of commitment to the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA).
“To reduce the highlighted challenges, the Post-2015 Hyogo Framework has called for the UN to expand the mandate of the United Nation International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) by empowering it to support developing countries in hazard identification and reducing the underlying factors.”
He also called for the encouragement of the private sector in disaster risk reduction.