Dodma supports disaster resilience programmes

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epartment of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) director of disaster risk reduction Dyce Nkhoma says the department is committed to supporting programmes aimed at building communities’ resilience to disasters.

He said this on Wednesday in Mangoch where disaster risk management stakeholders monitored the implementation of the National Resilience Strategy (NRS) under Titukulane Project.

Said Nkhoma: “Let us engage the most common person in project development and implementation. As technocrats, we need to ensure that the laid-out plans are in tandem with building resilience of communities to disasters.

“As a department, we will always support every effort towards building communities and the nation’s resilience to disasters.”

Nkhoma commended Titukulane Project for empowering people in Mangochi and Zomba districts to produce juice, provide early warning materials to communities and train civil protection committees, among others.

Titukulane Project chief of party Daniel Abbott said the project is committed to ensuring that communities can build their resilience while engaging in a number of activities.

“We want to support Mangochi and Zomba to become an example of what the NRS is meant to look like at district level and use that to replicate at national level,” he said.

Titukulane is a USAid-funded five-year project which started in 2019 to provide sustainable and resilient food and nutrition security for ultra-poor households in Mangochi and Zomba districts.

The $75 million project is being implemented by Care Malawi in collaboration with Emmanuel International, International Food Policy Research Institute, Save the Children, Water Aid and National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi in supporting the implementation of the NRS.

The NRS is a12-year strategy, led by Dodma, which aims at breaking the cycle of food and nutrition insecurity in the country.