Funds to cope with disasters not yet sufficient – Mozambique’s Minister of State Administration

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Funds to cope with disasters not yet sufficient – Mozambique’s Minister of State Administration

7:30 CAT | 07 Nov 2016

File photo / Minister of State Adminstration Carmelita Namashulua

The money the Mozambican government currently has available is insufficient to deal with possible natural disasters that may strike the country during the 2016/2017 rainy season, the Minister of State Administration, Carmelita Namashulua, warned on Thursday.

Addressing the opening session of a meeting of the Consultative Council of the country’s relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), Namashulua said “We have an initial sum, and we know it is not enough. But we are hopeful, because the Mozambican people are very united, and we also rely on help from our partners”.

The sum available for the 2016/17 rainy season contingency plan is 166 million meticais (about 2.2 million US dollars). But if, as feared, the country is hit by floods on major river basins affecting a million or more people, this sum will be nowhere near sufficient. The solution, in the Minister’s eyes, is to rely on national and international solidarity.

In the longer term, the country must become less vulnerable by building resilience, she said. “Where an infrastructure has been damaged by a natural disaster, due to weaknesses in its construction, the reconstruction must make it strong enough to resist the next disaster”, she urged. “Where the effects of drought are felt, water retention infrastructures must be installed”.

“This is the resilience to natural disasters that we want and that we must build”, she insisted, as she urged the INGC to reflect deeply on how it should play its role as the authority in charge of managing disasters.

Preventing and managing disasters, and reducing disaster risk are “extremely complex” processes, Namashulua said, and require that all participants at the meeting should perform their tasks with determination and efficiency.

She added that the government recognizes the importance of ensuring sustainable management of natural resources and of the environment. Hence the government has defined as strategic goals the promotion of studies and research to reduce disaster risk and adapt to climate change, thus reducing the exposure of communities and of the economy.

Source: AIM