1. DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND COMMUNICATION WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES By Gift Mafuleka Department of Poverty and Disaster Management Affairs, Malawi 15 th March 2006 San Jose, Costa Rica.

2. OUTLINE Background Activities of the department in relation to early warning systems – preparedness Sources of information on flash flood forecasting Communication channels Challenges

3. BACKGROUND Land area: About 118,000 sq Km, 20% of which is water Population: 12 million plus (1997 population census) Country amongst the last 6 least developed in the world Dopdma placed within the office of the President and Cabinet Mandate of the Department, coordinate disaster activities Institutionalized CPCs at grass roots revels

4. MAP OF MALAWI

5. ACTIVITIES OF THE DoPDMA IN RELATION TO EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS - PREPAREDNESS The country is in the process of formulating the National Disaster Management Plan and the Operations Manual Development of Flood Contingency plans for flood prone districts – 8. Done at the District level with local communities Assigned disaster officers at district levels (funding from UNDP) Conducted training for CPCs at all levels (district, area and village). Committees to act as frontline personnel in disaster issues

6. SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON FLASH FLOOD FORECASTING Meteorological Department Ministry of Water and Irrigation Development Local communities - local indigenous knowledge

7. COMMUNICATION CHANNELS Meteorological Department issues press release to stakeholders through both electronic and print media DoPDMA alerts district Commissioners especially those in flood prone areas to activate their Flood Contingency Plans Within rural setting, local leaders use call boys to alert the communities of the impeding hazard Local leaders then order evacuation and re- allocation of people to higher grounds if need arises

8. CHALLENGES Getting the right type of information from relevant stakeholders Poorly developed infrastructure and communication facilities. Lack of state of the art equipment to have timely, right predictions, and therefore right information Lack of trained personnel at all levels – need for on-going training programs because of high turnover of personnel Inadequate communication media (channels) at local levels - not very reliable and sustainable

9. CHALLENGES (continued) Uncoordinated approaches to dissemination of information to the users – political perception of early warning versus relief activities, people’s perception regarding handouts Problems with decision making when it comes to information regarding evacuation of the people Inadequate financial resources to coordinate and operationalize such activities at all levels Cultural issues – social aspects in areas prone to floods (people not willing to move to higher grounds for fear of losing their livelihoods/social structure strata)