The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) reported on Tuesday that over two million people in Ghana are impacted by natural catastrophes, which cost the country about $200 million annually.
This substantial financial loss, which amounts to over two percent of the nation’s GDP, emphasises how urgently disaster risk reduction investments are needed.
At the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Risk Management’s relaunch in Accra, Major (Rtd) Dr. Joseph Bikanyi Kuyon, Director-General of NADMO, revealed this.
He emphasised that funding preparedness is considerably more cost-effective than disaster reaction and recovery.
“If you invest $1 in disaster risk reduction, you save an average of about $5.5 in disaster response and recovery,” he stated.
He blamed the ongoing losses on uncoordinated efforts brought on by national coordination platforms’ inert state over the previous 15 years.
More than 4.3 million Ghanaians are predicted to experience a severe, one-in-100-year flood catastrophe, according to a World Bank report quoted by Ms. Isabel Njihia, a representative of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
According to her, floods alone cost the country over $100 million, and if nothing is done, that amount may quadruple by 2050.
As a sobering reminder of the terrible human and financial implications of climate-related disasters, Ms. Njihia cited the 2023 severe rainfall and dam spill in the Volta Basin, which forced over 26,000 people to from their homes.
Source: newsthemegh.com