The Department of Disaster Management Affairs says there is need to instill mindset change amongst various disaster risk management (DRM) stakeholders if the country were to make meaningful strides in building resilience and reducing climate-related risks.
Speaking on Thursday (12th January; 2023) in Salima District during the review of a report on the development of the national DRM successor policy, Commissioner for Disaster Management Affairs Charles Kalemba said it was high time policies and guidelines addressed mindset change to adapt to fast changing climate challenges and ever-increasing disasters the country is experiencing.
Said Kalemba; “Nature is not waiting for us, we need not to be slow otherwise we find ourselves lagging far behind nature. We need drastic changes in the way we formulate and implement our policies.”
“Policies need to go beyond the norm and address issues of living in disaster-prone areas and shape our way in breaking the food-insecurity cycle, it is inconceivable that as a people, we keep on being affected by food insecurity yet we have water bodies in abundance.”
He then called upon the technical working group on the development of the national DRM successor policy to fast-track the finalization while ensuring that the policy aligns with critical and emerging issues, laid down legal frameworks and the development blueprint.
The technical working group has since emphasized on ensuring that the successor policy is in line with the DRM bill which is currently under review.
DoDMA is coordinating the development of a successor national DRM policy following the elapsing of the predecessor policy’s implementation period in 2020.
The development of the successor policy is being conducted through a consultant with funding from the World Bank, under the Malawi Resilience and Disaster Risk Management Project (MRDRM), with the technical working group, which comprises various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and non-state actors providing technical expertise in line with their focus area.
