Malawi shares disaster mitigation interventions at global meet
THE Malawi Government has said it is fully committed to ensure that the risk of disasters is minimised through various interventions.
Commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs Clement Chinthu-Phiri made the assurance in Cancun, Mexico on Thursday where he has led a Malawi delegation to the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.
At the conference, Chinthu- Phiri shared various interventions that Malawi is employing to reduce risk of disasters. He said the interventions include development of community maps that show areas at risk of disasters.
“So far, we have produced maps for seven districts. Our plan is to cover all the 28 districts. We have also developed a Disaster Risk Management source book for schools,” Chinthu-Phiri said.
The commissioner also shared that as part of resilience, the government has launched an initiative where locals are provided with funds to implement small scale community based disaster risk reduction interventions.
“So far 20 communities have benefited and have utilised the funds to construct dykes to protect themselves from floods,” he said.
Malawi also shared its experiences of the 2015 catastrophic floods which killed many people and destroyed infrastructure and crops estimated at $335 million.
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