For effective disaster risk reduction, the Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), FCT Administration, has emphasized the significance of community engagement in emergency management.
Mrs. Florence Wenegieme, Director of Forecasting, Response, and Mitigation at FEMA, made this statement as part of the organization’s ongoing awareness-raising campaign in honour of the 2023 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Mrs. Wenegieme claims that when a tragedy occurs, community structures are frequently the first to respond. Community volunteers, local divers, town criers, disaster marshals, traditional and religious leaders, women, and youth organisations are just a few examples of these systems.
She noted that the involvement of these groups in disaster management considerably cuts down on the amount of time it takes to respond to emergencies.
She claims that these community structures, have a strategic role in disaster reduction in addition to early emergency response. According to her, this can be done by regularly raising citizens’ awareness of the dangers posed by humans and encouraging them to stop doing things like burning trees, connecting power illegally, constructing on waterways, putting trash into drains, and other human-caused hazards.
In order to lower the danger of disasters in communities, Mrs. Wenegieme spoke about the importance of providing community members with knowledge about what disasters are and how to prevent or mitigate them.
“The goal is to ensure that every community stakeholder plays a crucial role in disaster management, particularly early warning signals and disaster risk reduction,” she said.