Oshakati – The Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah wants the Disaster Risk Management committees to focus on the bottom-up approach while planning and implementing mitigation measures.
Nandi-Ndaitwah, who wants the involvement of community members, as prescribed in the Disaster Risk Management Act, feels communities are the best judges of their own vulnerability.
“It is the bottom-up approach that has received wide acceptance because communities are the best judges of their own vulnerability. We cannot rely on top-down management approaches,” she advised.
Nandi-Ndaitwah was speaking at the inauguration of the N$21 million Uukwangula Regional Strategic Disaster Risk Management Warehouse late last week.
The warehouse will serve Oshana, Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshikoto, and part of Kunene.
A similar warehouse was inaugurated in Mariental with another one scheduled for Oshikoto.
The building houses office space and changing rooms for the officials who manage the warehouse, cranes, cold storage room for the food that require refrigeration and air ventilation fans to moderate room temperature inside the warehouse.
Nandi-Ndaitwah said the infrastructure is an answer to the President’s call to ensure that drought relief food is well kept and that people who are severely affected by drought do not go hungry. With that same spirit, the deputy Prime Minister urged the staff to take care of the infrastructure through proper handling and maintenance.
She also urged government officials, community leaders and all the end-users to be honest in the assessment and food distribution.
She further called on all stakeholders to ensure that no food rots before reaching the beneficiaries.
“Give the right information and work with clear conscience. I am happy that for sometime we did not hear of food that got rotten in warehouses; that status must be maintained,” she stressed.
by Nuusita Ashipala