Integrated Emergency Management is the framework which provides permission to different government levels to work with one another for the mitigation, preparation, responding as well as recovering from the emergencies as well as disasters. The principle of integration as explained in the principles of emergency management states that the unity of efforts in all the government level along with all the components of the community is ensured by the unity managers. According to Tušer, (2020), unity of effort refers to having a common objective which serves in providing guidance to independent efforts. This is linked very closely with the coordination principles. The levels of government signify both the vertical as well as horizontal levels of government in a jurisdiction. The components of the community mean the general public, entities of public and private sector as well as the non-governmental organisations.
There is an annual ravage of disasters in different countries of Africa. Flooding is the most prevalent, severe event and it has severe implications for the sustainable development. The research examines the flooding in Nigeria as well as Ghana; these are the two nations which are affected by flood on a regular basis. Studies have proved that the underlying drivers of flooding are same in both the nations.
Nigeria is a West African nation with a population of approximately 208 million people and consist of 36 states as well as the Federal capital territory of Abuja a . Majority of the communities in Nigeria suffers perennial flooding especially at the time of the rainy season that occurs in between March and November. Research has found that 20% of the population of Nigeria is prone to flooding (Zhang, Wu, and Zhang, 2021). The annual hazards from flooding cause more displacements in comparison to any other disaster. The urban poor feel the most impact of flooding and they are most vulnerable as they live in the marginal flood prone locations and their conditions of housing is extremely poor which cannot survive floods. Even after the impact as well as extent of flood in Nigeria, the authorities have done very less for controlling the hazards as evidenced by the shortage of a concrete policy on flooding or any national flood risk management framework. The flooding in Nigeria is mainly induced by rainfall and compounded through a host of anthropogenic factors related combined with poor governance.
Ghana is a nation in Western Africa that has a population of 30 million people. The nation is prone to perennial flooding. At present, Ghana consists of 16 regions which experience an incident of annual flooding generally with accompanying destruction, deaths as well as devastation. No urban or rural areas are left but the occurrence in the areas which are populated heavily has the most destructive impacts. In the year 2018, two major events of flooding on 18th and 28th June in the cities of Kumasi as well as Accra resulted in 14 fatalities, 34,076 displacements as well as significant loss of the economy. Another singular events of flooding occurred on June 3 2015 which lead to the death of 152 people (Walsh, 2021). More people in Ghana are affected by flooding than any other disaster and the rate of fatality is only increased by the fatalities because of the epidemics. The authorities of Ghana have been blamed by the researchers for not doing enough for the mitigation of the recurrent flooding.
In Nigeria the National weather service gathers as well as interprets the data of rainfall all throughout the nation and issues flood watches along with warnings as appropriate. Some statistical model is used by them which incorporate the stream flow data for trying to forecast the outcomes or the expected storms. A network of stream flow-gaging stations is maintained all throughout the nation (Zhang, et al., 2021). The authorities in Nigeria have done very little for controlling the hazard as evidenced by the lack of a concrete policy on flooding or a framework of national risk management.
On the other hand, in Ghana, the bureau’s forecasting of flood along with the warning services make use of the rainfall as well as stream flow observations, predictions of numerical weather and hydrologic models for anticipating as well as warning for any possible event of flood across the nation. It is the responsibility of the Bureau of meteorology which provides an anticipation of flood in any state or region of the nation (Bhagavathula, et al., 2021). The provision of this service is done in cooperation with some other organisations like state and government territory, agencies of water and emergency management and some more.
The main aim of the assessment of a disaster like flood is to understand the probability that a flood of a specific intensity will take place over an extended time period. In both Nigeria and Ghana, the assessment of hazard aims at estimating this probability over fears’ for supporting the activities of risk management (JackulinMahariba, and Patel, 2021). The relationship between the probability and intensity of flood gives rise to the concept of return period. In Nigeria, the national report offers a comprehensive national analysis of the state of the risk of flood in the nation. In Ghana, the river gauging station is used for the assessment of flood. It is the easiest way of measuring the peak level of water at a specific location in a waterway.
Flood Risk Nigeria offers systems of flood protection custom fabricated for suiting the needs of the management of flood. The system offers experts of flood prevention who has the experience as well as expertise for the elimination of the risk of flood with some quality and proven tools, techniques and plans of flood prevention. Flood Risk systems helps in the protection of the commercial as well as residential property mitigating the closure risk. In Ghana, there has been a range of voluntary house rising as well as house buy-buy schemes in the flood prone communities (Mao, et al., 2021). Major reviews of the disaster funding arrangement of Ghana have found that there must be allocation of more funds to disaster risk reduction as well as prevention measures.
In Nigeria, The Emergency Management System is committed to social as well as physical science as the foundation for an increase in the individual and community preparedness and they have carried out national household surveys for the assessment of the knowledge, attitudes as well as behaviour of the public on the preparation of any kind of hazard including flood (Oltyan, Arefyeva,. and Kotosonov, 2020). On the other hand, whenever a region of Ghana declares disaster, its resources should be mobilized for responding as well as managing the event alone. But, in situations where the resources of the state or the territory are unable to cope up with the demand of the situation, then government can request for assistance from the commonwealth.
In Nigeria, whenever any disaster like flood occurs, the federal government, which is led by the Emergency management, provides response in the request of and in the support of the states, territories or the local jurisdiction which is impacted by the disaster. The action of response are organised under the National Response Framework (Zebrowski, 2019). On the contrary, in Ghana, the state and territory governments are responsible for the protection of environment, life and property at the time of a disaster, within their own jurisdiction.
Recovery in Nigeria, at the time of flood or any other disaster generally begins while the activities of emergency response are still in progress. The recovery process concentrates of the restoration, redevelopment as well as revitalizing the communities which are affected by the disaster. The national disaster recovery framework of Nigeria offer six recovery support functions for the provision of technical assistance as well as provide support to their recovery according to the priority of impacted community. On the flip side, in Ghana, The authorities of Ghana have been blamed by the researchers for not doing enough for the mitigation of the recurrent flooding. The nation’s policies as well as laws have also been blamed on flooding such as the Blue Agenda, The national water policy as well as the Sanitation Policy for the inadequate as well as poor implementation.
With the help of the Driver-pressure-state-impact-response framework classification for the drivers as casual factors, the floods which are experienced in both of this region is analysed. Driver-pressure-state-impact-response framework assumes a chain of general links starting with the driving forces that can be the activities of human to pressures, for instance, the land use change. The states can be the physical states such as flooding as well as effect o the ecosystem eventually resulting to the policy or political response for instant regulation of the environment. The main emphasize is on the drivers of the pluvial urban flooding that happens on a perennial basis, more often as well as spread across the urban areas in both the nation or other kind of flooding. Even after the difference in the size of population of Ghana and Nigeria, the findings prove that the flood drivers of both the nation are almost the same.
The big cities should take into consideration the civil unrest which comes with density of population of the metropolitan regions. In every case, there should be an integration of the local measures into an overarching plan. Integrated Emergency Management helps in building on the present local potential as well as efforts and offers incentives for the enhancement as well as integration of the efforts of disaster into a national system. The government of Ghana is highly interested in strengthening the Integrated Emergency Management across the nation. As Ghana is among the most bushfire-prone nation in the entire world, the security of its people, property as well as natural environment is dependent on a workforce who is trained properly for the emergency services and volunteers in regions like rescue, fire, medical care as well as relief. All over the nation and in some part of the rural areas, volunteerism is considered as the backbone of the emergency services. Whenever there is an event of a disaster in Ghana, all modes of operations of the emergency are used, including the mobilization of the air ambulances (Altshuler, 2019). This approach is extremely important as Ghana is a nation which is sparsely populated in many regions and there might not be a specialised centre of burn in those remote locations for attending the patients who are critically injured. As Ghana is looking forward for strengthening its internal expertise in a response to disaster as well as its management, the Integrated Emergency Management Systems have entered into an agreement with Nigeria for strengthening cooperation at the time of bushfires, major storms as well as any other severe natural disaster (Oltyan, Arefyeva,. and Kotosonov, 2020). There will be an establishment of a framework because of this agreement for facilitating greater coordination as well as cooperation at the time of emergencies or natural disasters. The agreement will include the following:
The signing of the agreement in between both these nations signifies the long history of the agencies of both the nations in aiding one another at the time of a natural disaster or a situation of emergency. The lessons of disasters in Ghana can help in the management of emergency in other countries around the world.
The fundamental principles of Integrated Emergency Management are based on four different phases- mitigation, preparedness, response as well as recovery. At the time of the phase of mitigation, an annual hazard mitigation assessment of risk is conducted which identifies the hazards that are said to be the most critical and demands more efforts in the upcoming year (Jin, Yang, and Fang, 2020). This phase comprises of the actions that has to be taken for preventing or reducing the impact, cause as well as result of the disaster. Some of the examples of mitigation of the hazard are- Construction of levees or some permanent barriers for the control of flood, buying insurance policy or reinforcement of fencing for the prevention of escapes of animal. Developing as well as maintaining the crisis as well as command action teams of incident is the main emphasize of the activities of preparedness. Providing training to these members of the staff in the process of management of emergency, development of the emergency response as well as continuity of the plan of operations are some of the things that can be done in a better way. The phase of preparedness comprises of planning, educational activities and training for the events which cannot be mitigated. The examples are- development of the preparedness plans of the disaster for the things that has to be done or the people who should be contacted for getting help at the time of a disaster. Another example includes creation of a supply items list which are useful in a disaster.The phase of response happens in the immediate aftermath of an event. In the phase of response, the business or other operations are unable to function in a normal way. Personal security as well as well as being in the time of an emergency is dependent on the level of preparedness (Kaawaase, and Simon, 2021). The examples of activities of response are- implantation of the disaster response plan, conduct of rescue or search missions. In the period of recovery, the efforts of restoration occur in a concurrent manner with the regular operations as well as activities. There can be a prolonged period of recovery from any disaster. Examples of activities of recovery are- prevention or reduction of illness related to stress along with excessive burden of finance, rebuilding the destructed structures on the basis of advanced knowledge that is obtained from the preceding disaster, decreasing vulnerability to the future disaster.
Conclusion
There might be a difference in the name or structure of the integrated emergency management systems or the working groups in different regions of the world but there is a common foundation of principles as well as concepts on which they operate. The implementation of these concepts as well as principles for ensuring an integrated effective management of disaster is an extremely dynamic process. There is a huge range of hazards, environments as well as communities and the strategies of management of the emergencies along with the activities have to be flexible as well as adaptable in the overall integrated as well as comprehensive approaches. There has to be an active promotion of the concept of the emergency management of risk as a part of good management and governance. There is a need of integration of this approach in all the policy as well as decision making of Integrated Emergency Management.
References
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