By Adedapo Adesanya
The European Union (EU) has announced the provision of €70,000 to reduce the impact of floods in Nigeria as the country anticipates the high flooding period.
The EU funding supports the Nigerian Red Cross Society to increase capacity and preparedness to reduce the impact of likely floods in Ondo, Kogi, Kebbi, Anambra and Cross River States.
This will be done through increased community awareness, prepositioning of stocks, mapping of evacuation centres and hygiene promotion.
It is expected that this support directly benefits 10,000 people and, indirectly, around 25,000 more.
The funding is part of the EU’s overall contribution to the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
In the past decade, especially during the last three years, there has been an observed pattern of flooding in Nigeria, with floods becoming the second most recurrent hazard affecting the country, after the epidemics.
The high flooding period generally recorded from August to October is usually characterised by the collapse of major dams, overflow of riverbanks and heavy occupation of residential areas or the environment by large masses of water due to heavy flow of run-off rainwater, uprooting and washing away of residential buildings, and blowing away roofs of buildings.
The rainy season also brings with it landslides in which hills and high lands collapse, burying people’s buildings and farmlands. The menace of erosion also comes in to contribute to further deterioration of the condition of the people and environment.
These trends are showing the necessity to anticipate the forecasted hazard and contribute much earlier to the preparedness in the areas at risk.
As such, the Nigeria Red Cross Society will take preventive measures to prepare for the anticipated impact that these events could have on the humanitarian situation before the flood season hits the country.
The EU is a signatory to a €3 million humanitarian delegation agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to support the Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF).
Business Post understands that funds from the DREF are mainly allocated to small-scale disasters – those that do not give rise to a formal international appeal.
Each time a National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society needs immediate financial support to respond to a disaster, it can request funds from the DREF which was established in 1985.
