City Of Harare | Local authorities important in disaster management: Mayor

Local authorities play an important role in disaster risk management and must be well equipped in light of new disasters that have characterised the country in the past few decades, Acting Mayor councillor Musarurwa Mutizwa has said. Cllr Mutizwa was speaking on Tuesday at a Harare Disaster Risk Management Plan workshop. “Local authorities have a key role to play in achieving society’s resilience to disasters. “The local government has a significant role to play in implementing disaster risk reduction initiatives. This workshop is coming at an opportune time when occurrence of natural disasters has increased significantly in recent past and this has resulted in a high number of economic and social loses in Harare Metropolitan Province and the country at large. “A case in point is the recurrent flooding in some parts of Harare particularly Budiriro suburb which has led to loss of properties,” he said. He said such incidents bring to the fore the need for the province to have a comprehensive disaster management plan and which should be based on an understanding of disaster risk in all its dimensions of vulnerability, capacity, exposure of persons and assets, hazard characteristics and the environment. “The risk reduction through improved resilience requires a multi-sectoral approach with the participation of various stakeholders hence the presence of critical players from government departments, non-governmental organisations and development partners,” he said.