Groups advocates for modern expertise in disaster management

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The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have underscored the synergy of modern and traditional knowledge of early warnings to disaster management.

Both organisations made this known on Tuesday in Abuja during a workshop on “Interfacing modern and indigenous early warning systems to build vulnerable communities’’.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the partnership between both organisations is focusing on countries in the Lake Chad Basin Region that have been adversely affected by climate change.

The countries are Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

Mr Mustapha Maihaja, the Director-General of NEMA said that the impact of climate change had been dire on the countries concerned.

He said that disaster could therefore be reduced to its minimal if there was a synergy of modern science and indigenous knowledge.

Maihaja, who was represented by Mr Alhassan Nuhu, the Director, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), NEMA explained that a fusion of both bodies in building effective early warning systems would reduce disaster on vulnerable communities.

“Climate risks are increasing in frequency and magnitude worldwide, impacting on human health, the environment and causing material loses to communities in a way that impedes the development of the society.

“This is slowing down the progress toward sustainable development, and throws up a challenge to us as disaster risk managers.

“The combination of both indigenous knowledge and modern science is inevitable; none can completely stand alone or excludes the other if our goal is to assure a reduction in loss of life and property.

“There is an increasing awareness of the importance of indigenous knowledge as invaluable and underutilised knowledge reservoir.

“Indigenous knowledge has been applied in evaluating climate trends and further used to establish early warning in our communities particularly with regards to rainfall patterns.

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“With the intensity and frequency of the changing pattern of climate and its impacts, the effectiveness of indigenous knowledge for disaster risk reduction is becoming grossly inadequate.

“There is therefore a need to link modern science with indigenous knowledge in order to build a culture of early warning systems and disaster risk reduction by vulnerable communities to the negative consequences of climate change,’’ Maihaja said.

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Maihaja urged participants of the workshop to come up with a laudable project that would better enhance an effective early warning system to mitigate disaster in the region.

‎Mr Yao Ydo, the Regional Representative of UNESCO to Nigeria said that with this new emerging challenges emanating from climate change, it was important to look at the other dimensions of knowledge.

Ydo, who was represented by Mr Saidou Jallow, Senior Education Specialist, UNESCO, Nigeria said that it would be very useful to fuse knowledge and other forms of knowledge acquired.

He said that the event was focusing on the Lake Chad Basin Region because the eco system of the region had been severely affected by the impact of climate change with terrible human and environmental consequences,

He explained that these consequences had manifested in form of insecurity, social dislocation, economic disruption and environmental degradation, among others,

The UNESCO regional representative explained that the synergy of both scientific and indigenous knowledge would generate a new co-produced knowledge that would enable effective action to cope with the impacts of the climate change.

Ydo said that for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNESCO encouraged member states to explore and value the good traditional solutions used in the past by communities to address development challenges.

He said that this could also help in building the resilience of members of communities.

Ydo said that UNESCO was partnering with NEMA as the agency responsible for disaster management so that they would  work together and bring in experts to develop mechanisms in building a robust DRR response.

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