By Precious D. Freeman
The Executive Director of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), Ansu Dulleh, holds meeting with the World Bank Group Country Team, solicits support to enhance the Agency’s emergency flood disaster mitigation.
According to him, as the NDMA begins to get overwhelmed by unprecedented flooding, with estimated 100,000 people at risk of flooding, windstorms, and coastal erosion this rainy season, and incidences of water-borne diseases expected to rise, coupled with the NDMA’s limited resilience and adaptive capacity to combat the effects of the compounded emergencies.
“Mass displacements, injuries, deaths, damaged homes and public buildings, and heightened health risks which are expected to worsen in the coming days and weeks. It has begun series of engagements, with both local and international partners, to mobilize the required resources to address the needs of people affected by the floods, as well as others at risk, and to support the logistical and technical capacities of the Agency,” he said.
Mr. Dulleh used the occasion to thank the World Bank Group Country Team for the commitments made over the years to support Liberia’s infrastructural programs.
He stated that none of their investments have gone unnoticed.
“Liberians remain grateful to your role played in her development agenda”, he noted.
During the meeting, he used the time to present the state of affairs of the current flood situation in Liberia and made an appeal for support to the Emergency Flood Disaster Mitigation Strategy.
For her part, representing the World Bank Group Country Team at the meeting, Operations Officer of the Liberia-Ghana Country Management Unit and Program Manager of the Liberia Reconstruction Trust Fund, Madam Carol Wambugu, expressed the Bank’s willingness to work and partner with the NDMA.
She said that the World Bank invests into a long term stronger disaster risk reduction management framework strategy, and she assures that, using the multi sectoral approach, the Bank will, at the soonest, provide support for a long term DRR Mitigation Policy and Strategy.
It can be recalled that the World Bank approved a financing package to increase flood resilience and access to urban infrastructure in selected neighborhoods and to improve urban management in Liberia.
The Liberia Urban Resilience Project (LURP) financed by the International Development Association (IDA) in the amount of $40 million $20 million grant and $20 million credit, focus on participative community infrastructure and access to basic services in poor and vulnerable communities and market areas.
The LURP mitigate climate and flood risks through structural and non-structural measures and provide basic services and infrastructure investments in underserved neighborhoods and strengthen institutional capacity for urban planning and management.
“The project’s support to upgrading urban infrastructure for flood risk resilience and improved service delivery will have a positive transformational impact on urban neighborhoods,” said Khwima Nthara, World Bank Liberia Country Manager.
The project also invest in strengthening the institutional capacity of the government and community in resilient integrated urban planning, in Greater Monrovia, including Paynesville, as well as the next three largest cities in Liberia: Buchanan, Ganta, and Gbarnga.
This will include support for the development of spatial, development and operational service delivery plans, as well as building human, technical and fiscal capacity to implement these plans through relevant national and local government Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The project targeted at least 200,000 persons to benefit from protection against flooding and the neighborhood upgrading activities.
An additional 300 beneficiaries from local and national government will gain assistance from the project’s capacity building and technical assistance investment due to their involvement in project implementation.
“The project’s integrated approach ensures adequate investments in infrastructure, human, and institutional capacities, as well as support to effective systems for urban development control, including improvements of land use planning and construction permitting,” said Co-Task Team Leaders Linus Pott and Robert Reid.
