Increase sought in disaster risks funds

PESHAWAR: The participants of a seminar have stressed more budgetary allocations, establishing integrated response mechanism and adequate utilization of resources to mitigate disaster risks.
The seminar was titled “Dissemination of Research study on Public financing of DRR [Disaster Risk Reduction] in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with stakeholders”. It was jointly organized by NZ consultant and Action Aid Pakistan here at Peshawar University.
Director Disaster Management Professor Muhammad Ahmad Jan, Researcher Dr Israr Khan, Programme Officer Action Aid Pakistan Liaqat Ali Khan addressed the occasion.Liaqat said that Action Aid Pakistan had undertaken this study to analyze the KP provincial budget allocations for DRR to understand trends of the budgetary allocations. The analysis will help Action Aid and relevant stakeholders to use this analysis for advocacy at appropriate forum for equitable resource allocations.
Dr Israr Khan said there was no consistency in resource allocation for Disaster Risk Reduction in the budgets of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The allocations have increased significantly after flood 2010 but there is a need to increase budget allocations for DRR to reduce and mitigate the risk of disasters.
He added that as per National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy 2012, NDMA & PDMAs need to be provided with sufficient financial resources for designing and implementing disaster risk reduction measures.
Addressing on the occasion Assistant Director of PDMA Dr Azmat Wazir, said that PDMA was bringing reforms in its organizational structure and improve delivery of service through effective coordination.
He suggested for integrated response mechanism for effective dissemination of information to all relevant stakeholders. Azmat Wazir said that soon government would appoint district disaster management officers to deal with any emergency at local level.