STAR GHANA Foundation, a non-governmental organization (NGO), has announced plans to establish a fund to mobilize financial support to increase financing and resourcing to better manage possible floods in the five northern regions.
Madam Rita Ntoso, Programmes Officer at STAR GHANA Foundation, who announced this, said the fund would be a short-term measure to respond to flood situations in Northern Ghana and would be done through philanthropy and local resource mobilization.
She was speaking at a community sensitization on floods risk reduction, at Sugu-Tampia, a flood-prone community in the Savelugu Municipality of the Northern Region.
The event, organised by the Northern Regional Directorate of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), with funding support from STAR GHANA Foundation, sought to strengthen residents’ capacities on strategies for risk reduction while building their resilience against incidences of a flood.
Madam Ntoso said the fund formed part of a roadmap being developed by STAR Ghana Foundation in partnership with TAMA Foundation Universal and the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province Partnership in Action as well as NADMO to help manage floods in the northern part of the country.
The roadmap provides a strategic framework for risk reduction and building communities’ resilience against floods.
They include strengthening flood management structures at community, district and regional levels, strengthening flood early warning systems in flood-prone communities, increase financing and resourcing for flood management through philanthropy and local resources mobilisation, among others.
Madam Ntoso noted that the fund would be used to support victims of floods by providing them with relief items that would help to mitigate the impact of the disaster on their livelihoods.
“This fund will provide readily financial resources to NADMO to be able to use to take care of victims of floods,” she said.
She, therefore, appealed to corporate bodies and individuals to assist in contributing to the fund once it is established to help serve its intended purpose.
Alhaji Abdallah Abdul-Mumin, Northern Regional Director of NADMO, who led a team of NADMO officials at the sensitization workshop, took participants through strategies and mechanisms they could employ before, during and after floods to help save their lives.
GNA
