NGO trains stakeholders in disaster risk management

Civil Society Network on Climate Change, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has trained Chikwawa District stakeholders on climate disaster risk management to enhance collaboration among various groups on climate change initiatives.

Speaking in an interview after a two-day training in the district, the NGO’s programmes manager Ruth Likambale said the training achieved its aim of sharing knowledge in disaster risk reduction, climate change, disaster risk financing and insurance to local and district structures to minimise the effects of natural disasters.

“We organised this training because the country has experienced high impact of climate change, so we want to make sure that people are prepared and adapt and mitigate the impact of climate change,” she said.

Likambale said the participants were drilled in preparedness, prevention, response, recovery, adaption, mitigation of climate change, disaster risk management, financing and insurance.

Chikwawa District Council gender officer Rosemary Mahata commended the NGO for the training, saying it was beneficial to the participants.

“This training has helped to fill the knowledge gap between district and community level structures as we have been drilled on disaster risk management and disaster risk financing and insurance which are important aspects in as far as disaster and climate change is concerned,” she said.

Village Agriculture Stakeholders Panel chairperson Kondwani Kanthema from Mpheza Village, Traditional Authority Ngabu, said the training helped them to understand that communities have power to monitor and evaluate climate change projects by different organisations in their communities.

“This training has been an eye-opener to us. We are going to share the knowledge with others in our communities so that they know about disaster risk management, disaster risk financing, insurance as well as participatory monitoring and evaluation in disaster risk management projects,” he said.

Chikwawa is one of the districts affected by natural disaster almost every year and was also heavily affected by Cyclone Freddy in mid-March this year