Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Engineer Shaukatullah, while appreciating the steps underway on part of Fata Disaster Management Authority to sensitise the people towards disaster risk reduction management, has said that "keeping in view the situation we have been facing both in the province and Fata there is a need to make constant efforts to ensure consistent support from all stakeholders, the local communities in particular."
The humanitarian community, their Donors and line Departments must come up with steps on similar lines to meet that requirement of immediate nature as well, he remarked. Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Disaster Risk Reduction Programme through education in Fata under the auspices of Fata Disaster Management Authority at Governor's House here on Friday, the Governor added "till now the communities are not so aware of the ground situations to the desired level". The Governor, flanked by Vice Chancellor of the University of Peshawar, Professor Dr Rasool Jan, also witnessed the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding which the Fata Disaster Management Authority inked with CDPM, the UoP. Besides Additional Chief Secretary, Fata, Arbab Muhammad Arif, FDMA DG Arshad Khan and other senior authorities of Fata Secretariat, the ceremony was also attended by representatives of US Humanitarian services, Unicef and the Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management of UoP and the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, Peshawar.
Referring to the salient features of the programme highlighted by Arshad Khan on this occasion, the Governor said, "The fact that the programme aims at incorporating DRR by establishing linkages between government institutions, local communities, the academia and humanitarian partners reflects a positive sign indeed." Pre-service training curriculum of teachers would also go a long way in building up local capacities in Fata in particular, he added. He expressed the confidence that collaboration between FDMA, Unicef and Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management (CDPM) to train government school teachers on DRR at the Departmental level by making use of local intelligentsia and resources would cause sustainable positive change in Fata too. Indeed, he remarked, guaranteeing longer term success of thiat initiative would require consistent support from all stakeholders including Fata Secretariat, local communities, teachers and all the administrative departments currently working in Fata.
Earlier, highlighting the importance of the programme, Arshad Khan, DG, FDMA, said they had been looking after almost 170,000 families from Fata for quite some time and their resettlement in their home areas was also a big task. Training of respective officials, he said, was a major component of the programme and they had every expectations of complete success of the efforts. Since, he added, almost, 200 million people were disturbed because of both man-made and natural disasters across the world, therefore, constant steps were the need of hour to sensitise people to minimise the losses.
