Some Civil Society organizations, Non-governmental Organizations, Academia, Private Sector and Government personnel involved in Disaster Risk Reduction has met in Yaoundé to discuss measures on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). This was during a workshop that took place at Djeuga Palace Hotel in Yaoundé on Wednesday 09 January, 2019. Organized by the Geotechnology, Environmental Assessment and Disaster Risk Reduction (GEADIRR), the objective of the meeting was to present the Views from the Frontline (VFL) 2019 project and putting in place a Cameroon advisory committee. VFL 2019 is a project implemented globally by the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Risk Reduction (GNDR). The project is sponsor by the European Union through GNDR and will be implemented in over 50 countries around the world. The first phase of VFL was conducted in 2009 and contributed in the monitoring of the level of progress in the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) on Disaster Risk Reduction at the local level. Cameroon has participated in two phases of the previous VFL; (2011 and 2013) and follow-up Frontline processes.
The 2019 VFL approach focus on the deployment of a local (people-oriented) monitoring system that will contribute towards the tracking of the progress of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) with efforts towards building coherent in the monitoring of other related global frameworks indicators including; (1) Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), (2) the Paris agreement (COP 21) on climate change, (3) the New Urban Agenda and (4) the Agenda for Humanity.
Results from this project is expected to guide DRR and resilience building awareness amongst community members. As such VFL reports identify factors that drive everyday disasters and create awareness amongst communities on the importance for them to build community resilience actions against disasters. Communities are made to know that apart from government, NGO and CSO’s they too are important partners to disaster risk reduction and resilience building.
The project also hopes to build systematic collaboration between governments, at risk people, and civil society in the design and implementation of Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience policies and practices. It is within this framework that Cameroon National Advisory Committee (NAC) was put in place during the workshop to provide advice to the National Coordinating Organization (NCO), and implementing partner organizations during the project period. The Committee is also responsible in supporting the selection of at-risk areas and communities to concentrate the VFL 2019 work, build a strong working spirit among the NCO and NAC members that should facilitate the proper realizations of the project. These results were attained during the workshop as NAC members identified the risk areas and communities as well as identify means to work as a team
At a time when government is scrupulously pursuing its policy of realizing major infrastructural development projects that should contribute to her 2035 emergence vision, VFL 2019 project could be considered an important component in awareness raising towards risk mitigation and disasters reduction and how to ensure the mainstreaming of DRR into major development projects in the country.
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