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{
    "id": 812262,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/812262/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 153,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "wasteful use of resources, in addition to exposing the victims of such disasters to such risks and dangers and slower recovery. Many victims of road accidents have had response injuries further because of untrained people trying to evacuate and move their bodies from the scene of accident. Others have got injured while being evacuated from buildings that have collapsed or that have faced different disasters. Madam Temporary Speaker, people living in informal settlements, especially in urban areas, arid and semi-arid lands are particularly vulnerable when it comes to disasters because the abilities to deal at a civic level and to cope with these disasters are constrained or limited and require greater investments in the systems of managing disaster. Disaster response reviews of the few that we have been able to look at have indicated that the response costs more than would otherwise be the case if sufficient efforts have been put in place for effective disaster management. We must realize even as we discuss this Bill that disaster risk management does not happen after the disaster has happened. It begins from the planning, early warning signals and from preventing the disasters. The prevention costs much less than what we need to do once the disasters have taken place. Madam Temporary Speaker, our Country submitted an action-plan to the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in December 2015 in Paris. According to that action-plan, droughts and floods alone cost us economic loses estimated to 3 per cent of our country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). You know what it takes to increase a country’s GDP by 1 per cent. The effect of disasters, but not all disasters; just floods and droughts has cost us three percent of our GDP in the economic loses. Madam Temporary Speaker, part of the problem we are dealing with is that we have various agencies dealing with different activities related to disaster management, search and rescue, first aid services and evacuation, anti-terrorism, surveillance, law enforcement and crowd control, peace building, conflict resolution operations and firefighting. However, the bane of our problem and a large part of what we are solving in this Bill is the fact that these institutions are housed in different Ministries and many times duplicate their efforts. They include the National Disaster Operations Center (NDOC), the National Disaster Management Unit (NDMU), the National Drought Management Agency (NDMA) under the Directorate of Special Programmes. Indeed, it is extremely difficult to get definitive answers on how the mandates of these agencies begin and end. They have varying budgets and different leadership. Many times they engage in turf wars. Their fights on turf has cost us lives. I am saying this because I have been there and seen it. These turf wars have reduced our response time to disaster management. Madam Temporary Speaker, two years ago at around midnight - it must have been the month of April - I received a phone call in 2016 that a building had collapsed in Nairobi County in Mathare. Once I got the news I moved from where I was and went home. In 2016, I was not yet an elected leader in Nairobi. I thought in my mind that somebody would be dealing with that issue. However, when I switched on my television set I saw the mess that was happening in Mathare Huruma. Iwent to the site. For one entire hour, in Huruma, these agencies were fighting over who has the mandate to be in charge of the rescue efforts and who will lead the rescue efforts; while The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}