Uganda moves on Sendai Framework

Source(s): United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Africa
Participants at the Uganda Resilience Dialogue in Kampala (Photo: UNISDR)
Participants at the Uganda Resilience Dialogue in Kampala (Photo: UNISDR)

KAMPALA, 16 December 2015 – Without addressing the growing levels of disaster and climate risk, the Government of Uganda fears that 43% of the population could regress into poverty.

The government is committed to delivering major reductions in disaster losses over the next ten years as it presses ahead with implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction which was adopted as a global blueprint in March this year.

According to Mr. Martin Owor, Commissioner for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Management in the Office of the Prime Minister, Uganda has established a resilience committee at the national level and developed a country paper on implementation of the Sendai Framework.

Once the strategic plans are in place in Uganda, Owor predicts that the country will be in a position to implement the provisions of the Sendai Framework in just ten instead of 15 years.

Since 1998, the country has suffered internal displacement of 1.8 million people as a result of floods, landslides and drought. Over 70 percent of natural hazards in Uganda are related to extreme hydro-meteorological events and in the last decade, Uganda has experienced over 2,500 disaster events, causing death, destruction and lost opportunities.

With the implementation of the Sendai Framework, the government has managed to handle the effects of El Niño-enhanced rains, which started in mid-September 2015 and are expected to continue until January 2016.

“The flooding and landslides are happening now, but the death rates are very low. We have so far lost only three people unlike in 2007, 2010 and 2011, where we lost many people. This is because of great planning, early warning through local DJs and building of resilience of communities to disasters,” said Mr. Owor.

Ms. Sharon Rusu, Head of the UNISDR Regional Office for Africa commended Uganda for taking the lead among the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda in the implementation of the Sendai Framework.

Her remarks were made at a one day Resilience Dialogue in Kampala, that aimed at providing a space for the country’s development partners, government officials, NGOs and Academics to present their perspectives on resilience in the context of Uganda’s development and to explore options for enhancing resilience in the implementation of the National Development Plan II (NDPII) and recently adopted ‘Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.’

Uganda has a national disaster preparedness and management plan and policy under the Office of the Prime Minister and Ms. Rusu noted that this is an excellent example of “risk-informed development” and central to building communities’ resilience in a country prone to disasters.

Uganda faces an array of development challenges, from the implications of rapid rural-urban migration, the increasing intensity and frequency of natural hazards, complex regional politics, environmental degradation and a changing climate.

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