UNDP AIDS NADMO TO SUPPORT FARMERS (OCT 14, PAGE 15)

THE United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has made available US$90,000 through the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to support farmers in northern Ghana.
The facility is to help rehabilitate the beneficiary farmers whose farming activities have been affected by floods. The farmers will, among other things, be supported to acquire farm inputs like water pumping machines as well as to cultivate crops with low gestation period to enable them to recover quickly from their financial problems.
The National Co-ordinator of the NADMO, Mr Kofi Portuphy made this known in Tamale during the inauguration of a 50-member Northern Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).
According to Mr Portuphy, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was expected to release $300,000 to support farmers in the country whose farming activities had been affected by floods.
The co-ordinator further disclosed that the World Bank had released $5.3 million to implement the Climate Change Risk Reduction activities in the country for the next three years.
He explained that the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) was assisting stakeholders to draw up a contingency plan for flood disaster issues in the country.
The co-ordinator intimated that the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) had provided several kits for reproductive health issues in the 10 regions of the country.
Mr Portuphy called on engineers and hydrologists in the north to critically assess the possibility of creating dams to channel the excess water resulting from floods into productive purposes like generating hydro electric power to help address the energy needs of the rural communities.
“We have done very little in this area and this must pre-occupy our minds now; we need a concerted effort to address the problem of floods in the north now” the co-ordinator further stressed.
He stated that the formation of the DRR was imperative because member states of the United Nations Economic and Social Council passed a resolution in 2005 that enjoined them to form regional, district and community platforms in their respective countries to reduce the risk of disasters.
He, therefore, entreated members of the DRR to formulate effective strategies that would take into consideration disaster prone areas in the north, including areas prone to earth quakes and tremors as a result of mining activities, disease outbreaks, and occurrences of wild fire.
The Northern Regional Co-ordinator of NADMO, Alhaji Abdulai Mahama Silimboma, observed that flood disasters had serious consequences on the development of the region.
He, therefore, stressed on the need for a multisectoral approach of reducing the risk of disasters in the north.
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba, who inaugurated the DRR, urged the members to be committed to the project to ensure the realisation of its objectives.
The DRR is chaired by the Northern Regional Minister, Mr Stephen Nayina, and made up of members from the Ghana Police Service, Information Services Department, Ghana Education Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. The rest include the NADMO, Community Water and Sanitation Agency, Ghana Health Service, Northern Regional House of Chiefs and the Red Cross Society.