Strengthening community resilience to combat disasters

The protracted and devastating damage to lives and livelihood occasioned by disasters in the Elgon region has increased over the past few years. The true extent of the impact of last week’s disaster is yet to be fully determined as the staggering death toll, is feared will rise in the coming days.

The search, rescue, and recovery efforts supported by the Office of the Prime Minister, the Uganda Red Cross Society, the military, and the locals are ongoing despite the resource constraints, rugged terrain, and the continuing rains that has made it impossible for the heavy machinery to access the area. This has left first responders with no option but to manually excavate using bare hands, axes, shovels, and hoes. 

Disasters severely disrupt people’s lives, hopes, goals, aspirations, and the environment. To mitigate and rescind this, we ought, as a country, to take protective measures that are community-centred and demand-driven to address humanitarian concerns while building community resilience to anticipate, prepare, and recover from the impacts of disasters. 

The success of this resilience hinges on the communities’ social cohesion to self-mobilise and address vulnerabilities using community-developed solutions that are holistic, appropriate, and proportional to the level of disaster threat.

Deliberate actions need to be taken to equip the community with knowledge, skills, and resources to identify contemporary responses to disaster preparedness and management. External stakeholders such as the government and the Uganda Red Cross Society have a huge role in bridging the skills and knowledge gap given their expertise in disaster management developed over the years. 

Preemptive measures purposed at enhancing the communities’ capacity to effectively respond to disasters fundamentally revolve around acquiring information that is both precautionary and protective and can guide actions before, during, and after a disaster. The communities’ resilience should be built on the pillar of preparedness migrating away from response. Preparedness contributes to enhancing the communities’ capability to contain and minimise the effects of a disasters, addresses disaster vulnerabilities, and alleviates human suffering. 

Building Community Reliance on Early Warning Systems (EWS) is essential in building community resilience in promoting a constant state of preparedness and generating timely and meaningful information to guide planning and resource allocation, and guide appropriate measures to mitigate the impacts of disasters. This can be done through the installation of EWS triggers, and the sharing of time and accurate weather forecasts denominated in the local languages that can be interpreted by the targeted communities 

Strengthening district disaster preparedness and response through operationalising and funding the District Disaster Management Committees (DDMCs) and the development of District Multi-Hazard Contingency Plans for all districts in the country and building community resilience. The roll-out of these two elements provides for a consistent and coordinated response to anticipate and mitigate potential emergencies while addressing the humanitarian needs of those adversely affected, taking into account actions before, during, and after the occurrence of a disaster. 

This is a call to the government to fast-track the country’s disaster legal preparedness by enacting a disaster law, the National Disaster Preparedness and Management Legislation in line with Objective 23 of National objectives and directives of state policy that shall greatly strengthen the communities’ resilience in combating disasters in the future.

The writer, Grace Mark Tusubira, Policy and Advocacy Manager at the Uganda Red Cross Society.

[email protected].