The Importance of Governance in Risk Reduction and Disaster Management — By @DrTubo
By: Iccdi Africa
Tags: Wash, Governance, Women, Climate Change, Disaster Response

The concept of risk reduction and disaster management isn’t one understood by many. What exactly does it mean?

In simple terms, it is the different actions, efforts or activities employed to prevent the risks of disasters as well as manage existing ones. It involves the development and subsequent implementation of specific policies, strategies and follow-up actions to reduce as well as manage hazards, exposure and the vulnerability to risks that will cause disasters so as to achieve the objective of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

These measures include; risk assessments, land use planning, environmental management, education and awareness/advocacy, early warning, protection of vulnerable areas, among others.

For a country like Nigeria, there have been conversations about which to prioritize: Climate Adaptation or Climate mitigation? Through the lens of DRR, what would your response be?

The conversation should not be whether to prioritize one over the other, rather, Nigeria should be working to implement both simultaneously because both strategies complement each other. Climate Adaptation for example centres around adjusting our behaviours, lifestyles, policies and strategies to protect ourselves, economies and environment from the negative effects of climate change.

It seeks to reduce the effect of already occurring climate change while looking at opportunities to still thrive in spite of it. Whereas, climate mitigation addresses the causes of climate change with the aim of minimizing the possible impacts on our environment, lives and economies.

Nigeria is affected by multiple hazards (natural and human-induced). Hence, prioritizing both strategies will ensure a more holistic and effective DDR, as well as preparedness and response to climate change.

Like many other environmental subjects, Risk Reduction & Disaster Management is hinged on Governance. What are your recommendations at Local level, sub-national level, national level & regional level for improved RR & DM?

Nigeria needs to employ a more decentralized approach to risk reduction and disaster management. A lot of the RR & DM activities are clustered at the centre (Federal level) and this is affecting their reach.

Yes, on paper Nigeria supposedly runs a decentralized RR & DM with NEMA at the federal level, SEMA at the state level and LEMA at the Local government level, but this is not our reality. So far, LASEMA (Lagos State Emergency Management Agency) seems to be the most active in Nigeria. Other states and LGAs are mostly activated or seem to come alive whenever there is a disaster and this should not be the case.

We need to implement a “Participatory Governance model” that will bring all hands-on deck and finally move us from a nation with all the policies on paper to one who actually implements its policies and carry out the action. Ensure accountability, transparency & proper coordination from top to bottom; with the needed synergy.

Also, we need to integrate RR & DM into the SDG implementation at all levels (fed, state & LGA) to increase efficiency.

Natural hazards like earthquakes, floods, droughts and cyclones are some common examples of disaster that poses great threats to human lives. To what extent are these human-induced?

Though some of the disasters mentioned above are natural disasters; that is, they are naturally occurring and affect human lives, some of these disasters like flooding for example can be induced by human anthropogenic activities.

The United States Geological Survey has over the years linked excessive fracking from oil exploration activities to earthquakes in both small & large magnitudes. Increasing air pollution has also been linked to Cyclones in South Asia. Poor land-use practices, indiscriminate waste disposal and the blockage waterways, deforestation, poorly planned infrastructures, among others, have been shown to cause human-induced flooding.

Hence, it is imperative that we are more responsible and take a more serious stance on disaster risk reduction and climate change.

Does Nigeria have existing & operational world-class governance structures or policies to ensure the proper response to Risk & Disaster Management? if NOT, please can you provide a solution?

Existing and operational world-class governance structures or policies to ensure the proper response to Risk and Disaster Management”? Not yet. Nigeria has made progress with RR & DM but a lot still needs to be done. For example, through NEMA, Nigeria was able to put out the National Disaster Management Framework (NDMF) in 2010.

The objectives were to “establish functional disaster management institutions at all levels of governance to prepare for, prevent, mitigate, respond to and recover from disaster events in Nigeria; to develop the capacity of relevant institutions and stakeholders for effective and efficient disaster management in Nigeria.

The objectives are well put together but because we still struggle with enforcement and implementation, it is yet to make significant progress. Again, in November 2019, NEMA launched the National Disaster Risk Management Policy in response to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Prioritizing four important areas: awareness and understanding of disaster risk, strengthen multi-stakeholder governance system for disaster risk management, enhance preparedness capacity to reduce exposure and vulnerability, and strengthen resilience disaster in order to support the development of strong governance structures in the country. Also very well put-together.

But we need to move faster with implementation, advocacy, engagement, capacity development, partnership arrangements with CSOs and other stakeholders. There needs to be an attitudinal change in the way we view RR & DM in Nigeria, & this cannot be achieved in isolation. This is why ADVOCACY & AWARENESS should take the fore.

We need to ensure the “people” are working in synergy with the processes and technology needed to achieve our objectives. No policy can drive itself without the people. And as we progress, we must not forget to review & update the processes & policies to scale up to new challenges and needs. This is because no policy or plan is 100% perfect.

Things change and we do not want to end up with “another” obsolete piece of document with no significant impact. We need to ensure there are clearly defined action plans, deliverables and KPIs to track progress.

Lastly, clearly define the funding & financial appropriation for the policy elements for effective implementation.

Complied by ICCDI Africa for the commemoration of International Day of Disaster Risk Reduction 2020