“Hundreds and thousands of residents within this geographical area and beyond count their losses in misery as they are either hit by one or two of these three monsters.”

Mr Maxwell Niber, Lawra District Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) revealed this during a one-day Disaster Risk Management (DRM) training workshop in Lawra in the Upper West Region.

The Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) in collaboration with HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation and Groundswell International are implementing a two-year project dubbed “Water for Resilience” Project.

The project aims at making water available for an all-year-round farming across communities in the two districts through the provision of boreholes and hand-dug wells.

Weary of the exposure of the people to the risk of disasters, the project has therefore made DRM a key component of the project.

Addressing participants during the training in Lawra, Eveline Studer of HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation DRM Advisor revealed that damage caused by natural disasters between 2000-2012 was worth US$1.3 trillion globally.

Another 2.7 billion people were affected resulting in 1.1 million deaths within the same period; she said and called for the need to prioritise DRM which she said was cost effective.

She said it was important for District Planning Officers to integrate DRM into their Mid Term Planning, hence the need for all the different institutions that have different roles to play in relation to DRM to understand the risk that communities are facing in order for them to have risk reduction measures in place.

Mr Daniel Banuoku, a Deputy Director of CIKOD explained that the project was designed to fulfill a number of objectives as part of the continued process being pursued to support sustainable agriculture system in Northern Ghana.

“We have been working to promote practices and technologies that will respond appropriately to climate change”, he said adding they have realised that there was something missing and that missing piece was the fact that their people were exposed to a number various vulnerability forms because of climate change.

Mr Banuoku said in respond to this challenge, the “Water for Resilience” project was introduced to provide some water facilities to places that genuinely do not have water to do all-year-round production with the ultimate aim of contributing to community nutrition and reducing poverty as well.

Mr Martin Domotier Bomba-ire, Lawra District Chief Executive (DCE) said the low level of water in the Black Volta River at present was a warning sign that something was wrong with regards to climate change.

He was certain that the workshop would afford participants the opportunity to learn new skills in DRM and urged them to have an open discussion of all disaster risk issues with the facilitators to receive useful solutions.

The DRM workshop was attended by District Coordinating Directors, District Planning Officers and Engineers, Public Health Officers, Ghana National Fire Service Officials, Ambulance Service, Ghana Red Cross and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).

In a community visit to Kalsagri and Tanchara communities, members validated the report from NADMO, saying in addition to the droughts, one of the biggest disasters that affected farmers in the just ended farming season was the Fall Army Worm (FAW) infestation.

They said although government provided chemical for the FWA, it did not get to them; a situation that compelled some of them to resort to the use of ordinary ash which they said proved somehow effective.

Others who also experimented with a concoction made from nim leaves and seed said they also got some favourable result.

The farmers called for research into the use of ash and nim with the hope that the findings would be successfully scaled-up to support farmers.