WATCH: Bulawayo crafts disaster risk management plan

Bongani Ndlovu, Online Reporter

THE Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Disaster Risk Management Workshop has been hailed as a success after coming up with a Disaster Management plan that will be implemented in the province.

The workshop that ended yesterday, held over five days at Redwood in Figtree, brought together professionals and academics in disaster management.

There were presentations on Disaster Risk Management and how to come up with a plan to mitigate disasters and act upon them if and when they occur. Thereafter the committee crafted a disaster risk management and emergency preparedness plan, identification of hazards, finding ways of curtailing hazards, sensitising communities on hazards, how to manage disasters during an emergency and the reporting structure.

Wrapping up the meeting, Mrs Tswagai Fikile Marovatsanga, acting Director Ministry of Local Government and Public Works Bulawayo Province said the meeting was fruitful and the Metropolitan province is ready for any impending disaster.

“We actually captured all the hazards that could possibly affect the Metropolitan province of Bulawayo. It was a cross-section of all the stakeholders in Bulawayo that have to do with Civil Protection issues. We have also come up with a plan to organise awareness campaigns so that people can be able to tackle or curtail the hazards. She said it was important to have disaster risk management plans as they conscientise the community to be ready should any disaster occur in the city.

Mrs Marovatsanga said meetings will be held quarterly to update on what is attaining on the ground in terms of Civil Protection and disaster response preparedness. “Where we don’t have districts in the Metropolitan province of Bulawayo, we had committees and we want to revive them. Actually, in the meeting we have determined that we want to revive these committees at ward level. In the meeting we had community representatives,” said Mrs Marovatsanga.

Representatives from the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, Ministry of Health and Child Care, Department of Social Welfare, Women Affairs, Bulawayo City Council Fire and Ambulance services, Zimbabwe Republic Police and Ministry of Information Publicity and Broadcasting Services were part of the workshop. Residents’ associations represented the community of Bulawayo. The donor community such as Unicef, Plan International, World Vision, Africa Ahead among others were also part of the meeting. These all form the Bulawayo Provincial Civil Protection Unit.