Capacity building critical aspect of Disaster Management – FEMA 

Favour Ishember, Abuja

The Director General of Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, in the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory Administration, Dr Abbas Idriss has stated that capacity building is a vital aspect of Disaster Management.

Stating this at the opening ceremony of the ongoing one week strategic Executive Seminar for Nigeria Emergency Management Stakeholders organize by the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, in Abuja, the FEMA boss stressed that when the drivers of disaster management do not update their skills or are not knowledgeable enough, they will continue to do the wrong thing in a wrong direction.

He commended the tenacity of the Director General of NEMA, Mustapha Ahmed Habib, for having keen interest in building the capacities of State Emergency Management Agencies.

In his words, ” I want to appreciate the Director General of NEMA for putting this executive seminar together for all the participants here. You will agree with me that capacity building is a very vital aspect of disaster management, if the drivers of disaster management can not update it and are not knowledgeable enough then we will continue to do a wrong thing in a wrong direction.

“I remember last year, we had the multi agency coordination training and this year we are having another training. This has shown that the Director General is really very interested in building the capacities of the State Emergency Management Agencies”.

” It is very important to note that all of us seated here are the drivers of disaster race production at our local level. We take disaster management to be bottom up and that is how it is suppose to be from the Local Emergency Management Committees to State Emergency Management Agencies then to National Emergency Management Agency. That is how it is supposed to be. But if we are not educated and we are not trained definitely we will be left with nothing but serious disaster affecting multiple number of people in our communities”, he added.

While appreciating the DG of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, for sustaining the seminar over the years, Dr Iddriss also appealed that going forward, the SEMAs should have more training in different aspect of disaster management.

According to him, ” I appeal on behalf of my colleagues that we need more training and capacity building. We thank you most sincerely for this and others that you have done and we look”.

The Leader and lead facilitator of the Seminar, Director, Bournemouth University International Disaster Management, BUDMC, Dr Richard Gordon who explained that the institute was founded in 2001 and provides world-class training and technical assistance in disaster management in order to help reduce risks, build resilience and ensure rapid and sustainable recovery when disasters strike.

Dr Richard added that the team has years of experience working in the UK and Overseas assisting governments, ministries, NGOs and multi-national organisations with disaster and crisis preparedness, response and recovery.

He further explained the Agency’s collaboration with the centre dates back to 2007 when the Nigeria “National Disaster Management Course” sponsored by the British High commission through BUDMC at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji from the 29th October — 9th November with twenty (20) critical stakeholders participating.