A meeting on disaster management policy in Africa began on monday in Yaounde.

An African Union (AU) consultative meeting with Regional Economic Communities on Disaster Management Policy began yesterday February 20 in Yaounde with some 60 experts from all the sub-regions in Africa. They are discussing the most frequent disasters in Africa, the causes of the disasters, their consequences and how far Africa should be prepared to adequately tackle such disasters.

While opening the meeting, the Director of Political Affairs Department at the African Union Commission, Ambassador Emile Ognimba, said the gathering is aimed at fashioning a continental policy that consolidates all sub-regional planning, preparedness, mitigation and post-disaster response policies in a manner that allows for a coherent continental policy framework capable of meeting the growing challenges of humanitarian crisis resulting from numerous natural and man-made disasters in Africa.

Emile Ognimba said there is need for the development of a common and convergence policy through the harmonisation of existing policies at the sub-regional level. Before coming out with a harmonised policy on disaster management in Africa, the Director of Civil Protection at the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Dr Jean-Pierre Nana said they will examine how far regional communities in Africa have applied the framework for action which was voted in Japan in 2005 during the Second Worldwide Conference on Disaster Prevention.

For two days, the experts will also talk about national legislations to make sure that countries in the African Union come up with legal instruments and structures that can help make the management of disaster a priority in each country as well as help reinforce the human capacity of African countries in facing disasters.