Speaking at a meeting to mark the International Disaster Risk Reduction day on Wednesday, Prof. Virginia Murray, a scientist based at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said they have published the new Hazard Information Profiles to guide countries on decisions relating to different disasters that they are at risk of.
Scientists have urged the government to adopt up to date early
warning systems to guard against disasters that happen repeatedly but cause avoidable
damage every time they strike.
Speaking at a meeting to mark the International Disaster
Risk Reduction day on Wednesday, Prof. Virginia Murray, a scientist based at the
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said they have published the new
Hazard Information Profiles to guide countries on decisions relating to
different disasters that they are at risk of.
Murray who was speaking to researchers at the Makerere
University School of Public Health said the COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot
of waste alerting healthcare managers to identify and plan early for the
healthcare hazards that may arise in the future. She also called for regular reviews of the warning systems that
Uganda has adopted.
In the new profiles, the UN highlights that one barrier to sharing
and using risk information effectively has been the lack of standardized
definitions of hazards and a lack of guidance on the full range of hazards from hydro-meteorological, extraterrestrial, geological, environmental, chemical,
biological, technological and societal
that need to be addressed in risk management.
Commenting about the new profiles and disaster preparedness
in the country, Prof. Rhoda Wanyenze the Dean School of Public Health said
Uganda is not moving at the right pace even with evidence of climate change
effects in recent calamities that the country has suffered including floods and
mudslides.
//Cue in; ”we are still...
Cue out… of the effects."//
However, Kerem Alp, the Turkish Ambassador to Uganda who officiated
at the meeting said communities need to be trained on how to detect calamities
and how to mitigate the damage when they occur. In Turkey he said, they have so far trained
three million people in a campaign they have dubbed the Disaster Training year.
//Cue in; “We have declared…
Cue out…are denying it.”//
Also, he said Turkey has designated a ministry to be in
charge of climate change, becoming the first country in the world to make this
move.
In Uganda however, as part of the efforts to curb the effects of
climate change, a National Risk and vulnerabilities Atlas was launched last
year with maps and graphics to give pointers on risk areas and how well
establish how such risks can be mitigated.
