Abuja — The Federal Government has kick-started an initiative to involve communities in managing disaster occurrences in the country.

Early warning system involves observation, collation, analysis and reporting of proximate conditions to facilitate timely response that avert potentially catastrophic future event.

The initiative, known as the community based early warning and response system for disaster risk reduction in Nigeria, is the brain-child of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

Speaking at the opening of the workshop to flag-off the scheme yesterday in Abuja, NEMA's Director-General, AVM Muhammed Audu-Bida, said the decision to develop a community-based disaster response strategy was occasioned by the need to strenghten disaster reduction policies, to ensure that natural hazards do not result in economic and social dislocation.

He said Nigeria is increasingly becoming prone to disaters in recent times, with the ever looming threats of flood, oil spill, gully erosion, drought, desertification, oil pipeline vandalisation, fire, plane crashes and communal crisis.

He said the strategy is to help create a community-based early warning to reduce impact of disasters on vulnerable communities.

"We have to work together to end this ugly phenomenon in our nation. The people must be made to be aware of the risk of disasters. Communities, in collaboration with relevant government agencies, are expected to develop appropriate early warning system to mitigate the risk," he said and charged stakeholders to try and identify opportunities provided by modern technology and scientific knowledge, so as to integrate them into public policy and local community environment.

Executive Director of WANEP Nigeria, Mr Abiola Afolabi, said Nigeria stands to gain from the system of involving communities in the development of disaster response mechanism, because the people would be empowered with speciall skill, to take care of any emergency within their locality without waiting for the national body.