"Preparedness is still not sufficient because in the context of climate change preparedness has to look at scenarios of uncertainty, and address needs of eventualities that we still do not know." - Joseph P. Sahayam, CASA, Tamil Nadu, India
The works carried out in the last ten years have led to
very good levels of preparedness activities.
The challenge is to maintain the level of preparedness over time in an
area where such disasters are not frequent phenomenon.
For this purpose, the Panchayat has to be the key for all
programming. In our work we manage
programmes in a cluster mode, each cluster covering four to five villages. However, in larger government approach the
individual Panchayats need to be the basic unit.
Another requirement is that all agencies should follow
the same approach of preparedness and task forces. As of now each agency creates its own system and there is confusion at the level of the community and you cannot even put
all units together to get a consistent larger system. Such convergence has to be brought in through
closer cooperation amongst the agencies, and between the government and
NGOs. As of now people working in NGOs
and government departments are not even aware of each other's programmes and
this needs to be addressed through closer collaboration.
NGOs being aware of and tapping into government schemes
is the best way for mainstreaming of our risk reduction activities into
developmental programming. Such
mainstream according to me is the only way ahead, and all key sectors of
development have to make this happen.
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