Coronavirus, locusts good reason to enact shelved disaster bill now

The recent cyclic drought and floods in the country call for an urgent enactment of the 2016 Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Bill, which has lain on the shelves for years.

Tabled by then-Isiolo Woman Representative Tiya Galgalo, the bill is now even more urgent and of great importance to national security that the Cabinet should prioritise its approval for onward transmission to Parliament for enactment.

Disasters such as the desert locust invasion in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), especially the north, which are also the hardest hit by cyclic droughts and flooding, need a proactive policy approach for early response and intervention.

A firm legal framework that lays down the legal foundation for partnership in institutional participatory management of disasters is necessary.

As currently constituted, the mandate of the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) is purely mitigation of drought effects.

The agency, therefore, cannot address floods as a hazard — which calls for a holistic approach, including the urgent constitution of a Disaster Risk Management Authority as proposed in the DRM Bill.

SHIELDING ASALs

This should include mobilisation of the essential resources necessary for management of all disasters and, above all, a system that will prevent turf wars by being domiciled at the Office of the President.

There are a number of draft DRM-related legal documents that are urgently needed to help the country to comprehensively deal with tragedies that should otherwise be linked with counties’ disaster risk management organs but are gathering dust in public offices.

Once the national DRM policy is constituted, it will support disaster-prone counties and, therefore, get activated when necessary, as opposed to relying on aid agencies as first responders to disasters.

The DRM Policy 2017, which was sponsored by the Interior, Devolution, Defence and Finance ministries, also need to be fast-tracked and constituted to arrest and caution ASAL counties against disasters.

In addition, the DRM Bill and the National Disaster Management Bill 2018, currently before the Senate, need to be enacted as a matter of urgency and national concern to galvanise support to ASAL counties’ DRM bills.

Once enacted and implemented, the country will be better prepared to deal with disasters and tragedies, including those that cause mass fatalities — such as the desert locust invasion and the Covid-19 global pandemic.

FISCAL PLANNING

A disaster risk management legislation will activate disaster response and early mitigation in case of an emergency.

The policy will clearly spell out the management of national disasters and set out standard operating procedures, including setting aside a portion of county revenues for early disaster response and mitigation.

A disaster management colleague notes that failure to enact disaster risk management legislation seven years down the line has denied counties the much-needed funds for planning, response and recovery during emergencies.

This is despite guidance by the national government on county fiscal planning. Worse, the few county allocations are not made public.

This basically means that counties cannot operationalise funds for disaster response except through reprogramming of development funds.

And that takes ages due to bureaucratic approval processes. Moreover, reprogramming often puts accountability into question.

Our response is, habitually, a knee-jerk reaction. I call on the county governments to learn from past disaster responses and plan to build back better as the Constitution underscores this as an intrinsic responsibility of the national and county governments.

The government should foster the adoption and equipping of disaster management units at all levels with the requisite resource.

The government must also encourage disaster preparedness among the citizenry — as an agenda for county governments, with adequate financing, besides fast-tracking the DRM Bill.

Mr Adankhalif is a disaster risk expert and aid worker based in Mandera; [email protected].