Lagos — OVER the last decade, disasters triggered by nature and human induced hazards have claimed more than 600,000 lives and affected more than 2.4 billion people, majority are in developing countries of the world like Nigeria.

According to report, years has shown that developmental gains are lost, poverty deepen for millions and leaving people more exposed to future hazards and disaster risks.

It was against this background that West African Network for Peace building Nigeria (WANEP) with the support from Norib Oxford Netherlands organized an importance of consolidating cooperation between humanitarian organizations and vulnerable communities towards disaster risk reduction in Nigeria.

Audu-Bida further explained that disaster management should always be based on interdisciplinary collaboration among people in governments, non-governmental organizations, research and training institutions and the commercial sector of affected communities. He observed that Ngos and two days workshop in Abuja recently.

The event which came under the them "Consolidating Cooperation between Humanitarian Communities for disaster risk reduction in Nigeria" attracted participants from government, Civil Society Organizations, international Organizations and a host of others.

Speaking at the event, Director General, National Management Agency, (NEMA) AVMM. Audu-Bida lauded the organizers of the event for what he described as their foresight and commitment towards the collective effort of bringing to the fore the private sector has often played an important relief role in disasters even as he said that some have been more successful than others.

Driving home his point he said: "They are quick in response, have local knowledge and expertise to their advantage. Disaster management therefore needs to be a coordinated effort between the government, various institutions, non-governmental organizations, community based organizations and the commercial sector.

To him, disasters are often large and unduly events to manage adding "it cannot be tacked by an individual sector alone. The coordinated team efforts of a number of role -players are essential to the management of disasters".

Head of Programme WANEP, Mr. Ifeanyi Okechukwu who presented a paper tagged "Concept Paper: consolidating cooperation between Humanitarian Organization and Vulnerable Communities for disaster risk reduction in Nigeria observed that new patterns of manmade disasters, coupled with shortcoming of humanitarian organizations to consult with affected populations before intervention, limits effective humanitarian assistance to millions of people globally.

This Mr. Okechukwu explained reinforce physical and psychological trauma on the communities as they are faced with poor capacities to cope or prepare themselves effectively to mitigate the risks of future disasters or themselves.

He said: "Vulnerabilities are consequence of peculiar factors acting to foster humanitarian crises on one or multiple groups of people who lack opposing capacities to minimize its impact on them".

Maintaining that the world has been replete with myriads of disasters and mass casualties he quoted International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescents Societies he said: "an average of 220 natural disasters, 70 technological disasters and 3 new armed conflicts happen in each year globally".

Coming down home he said: "Nigeria has the largest population in the African Continent. Despite its rich diversity economic potentials and influence in West African and the Continent, it has been plagued by political, ethno-religions, communal and social conflicts that have escalated in scale and dimension since the return of democracy in 1999".

To him, this has been further compounded by natural disasters adding that over 10,000 persons have been killed and more than 1 million persons displaced from the interplay of natural and manmade disasters in the past decade.

Highlighting the role of humanitarian organizations to Vulnerable Communities he said organization such as National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the state Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) provide services and allied support to local groups of disadvantaged rural or urban households and individuals exposed to hazards in communities.

Maintaining that humanitarian organizations in Nigeria have been fostering empowerment of vulnerable communities he said: "They have been involved in managing natural and manmade disaster".

Considering how humanitarian organizations can consolidate cooperation with vulnerable communities in Nigeria he said, "Disaster risk reduction is about stronger building codes, sound land use planning, better early warming systems, environmental management and evacuations plans and above all education".

Enumerating ways in which government and non governmental humanitarian organizations in Nigeria can further consolidate cooperation with vulnerable communities he said include;

• Making them aware of local coping capacities. Damage can be reduced if only people are made aware of the risks. Humanitarian organizations should work with communities to draw maps of their villages, identify houses and areas most at risks so that they can protect them.
• Increasing local community capacity to address the most urgent situations of vulnerability.
• Involving vulnerable communities in contingency planning meetings, annual lessons learnt conferences and risk appraisal meetings.
• Developing community based contingency plans: A comparative case analysis of disaster preparedness in a country such as Cuba and Nigeria shows the obvious gaps in this area. For instance in Nigeria, the collapse of the Gusau barrage dam in Zamfara state led to the destruction of over 500 houses, the drowning of about 40 persons and the displacement of thousands. In contrast the recent hurricane disaster in Cuba was the safest and most coordinated preventive action taken of any disaster preparedness in recent times. More than 700,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters hours before the 2006 hurricanes struck. Building on such experiences, humanitarian organizations should support vulnerable communities in Nigeria to prepare evacuation plans and build flood defenses and anti-erosion barriers to provide protection from future storms;
• And pursuing advocacy programmes that promotes the establishment of enabling laws or policies that complement the efforts for change as well as empower various levels of target groups in vulnerable communities to support such process as a way of improving their socio-economic and political needs.

Delving into "The West African humanitarian situation: Prospect and challenges" Advisor ECOWAS Commission, Aliou M .DLa noted that about 139 Million people live in extreme poverty in West Africa adding: " These people are particularly vulnerable to overall Food insecurity, the effects of recurrent and regular natural disasters and cyclical epidemics compounded by climate change and socio-political instabilities.

Speaking further he pointed out that trans-national criminal activities, ranging from drug trafficking to terrorism also threaten the regions instability.

The result he said is that the hundreds of thousands of households live under constant threat of tipping into acute vulnerabity.

Still on health, he regretted that the west African region since many years has seen a Meningitis epidemic in several countries including, Burkina Faso, Cote d'lvoire; Niger, Nigeria among others.

While that of Yellow Fever outbreaks he said have reported in Cote d'voire, Liberia and Guinea even as he said that the outbreaks are of grate concern.

Talking about conflicts and security in West Africa he said: "From independence through 2004, the sixteen West Africa states have experienced 44 successful Military-led coups 43 often bloody failed coups, at least 82 coup plots, 7 line wars, and many other forms of political conflict".

In addition he explained that the patterns of migration in West Africa are strongly rooted in economic, political and cultural factors.

"The region has large-scale migration within itself, and is also a transit point for migrants from far beyond. It is also characterized by a protracted refugee situation due to past conflict in the region".

"Children face a wide range of protection risks, including child labour and sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and domestic violence, discrimination and rejection gender based violence (GBV) remains a deep concern in the region he added".

To him the overall human security environment in West Africa has steadily deterioted over the last 15 years due to the following: Increase in and deepening of poverty, weakening of coping capacities; Inability of an increase number of states to guarantee protection on their territory: privatization of use of violence by an increasing number of actors, high number of non-disarmed former combatants; and Increase in crime drug trafficking, human trafficking, smuggling of plundered natural resources.

(On his part Dennis Onoise of Protection and Emergency Advisor, save the children, UK, Nigeria office,) who spoke on "Prospects and challenges of Disaster Response to the reduction of Vulnerable communities in Nigeria" stated that a total of 40 million people are today displaced by conflict or human rights violations adding that half of these are reported to be children the poor and other vulnerable people.

While hazards are largely unavoidable, especially with the growing threat of climate change, they only become disasters when communities coping mechanisms are exceeded and they are unable to manage their impacts. The world's poorest and most vulnerable people are those most at risk.