Saulos Chilima asks councils to build resilience
Vice President Saulos Chilima has said district councils should start directing resources towards interventions that would contribute to building community resilience in disaster-prone areas.
Chilima said there is a need to redesign and prioritise resilience building interventions so that the country could deal with the challenge of food insecurity.
“Although the government is doing everything possible to ensure that all the affected households in every disaster, including food insecurity, are assisted accordingly, we need to start directing our resources to resilience-building interventions,”Chilima said during the launch of the 2017/18 Lean Season Food Insecurity Response Plan and distribution of relief food.
The relief items were donated by the Chinese government.
“That will not be the responsibility of the district councils alone but even development partners and civil society organisations,” he said.
On the issue of the fall army worm, Chilima assured people, farmers in particular, that the government would do everything within its mandate to ensure that the pests were controlled.
“I am aware that the risk of losing our crop due to the fall army worm is still high. I would like to urge the Ministry of Agriculture to help our famers contain the fall army worm,” said the Veep
United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative, Florence Rolle, concurred with the Vice-President on the need to come up with measures that would contribute to efforts to build resilience in the communities.
Rolle emphasised that cash transfers were not enough to address challenges affecting food-insecure people in the country.
“I think there is more to be done to ensure that the country achieves food security. There is need to encourage interventions that can build resilience among communities. One of such interventions is encouraging irrigation farming,” Rolle said.
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