The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) on Friday appealed to CARE International and World Vision, Ghana, non-governmental organizations, to assist over 4,000 victims of flood that hit Garu-Tempane District last September.
The flood killed three people, destroyed about 400 hectares of farm lands cropped mainly with maize and sorghum, the main staples in the area. It also damaged schools and 618 houses, affecting 4,227 people.
Ms Grace Nkaw, Garu-Tempane District Coordinator of NADMO, made the appeal in an interview with the GNA at a workshop aimed at analyzing the feasibility of adaptation strategies to meet the challenges of climate change.
It was organized by Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP) under CARE for representatives of eight communities drawn from the Garu-Tempane and Mamprusi West districts.
The community members proposed, as one of the top priority adaptation strategies to meet the challenges of climate change, assistance to enable them build improved houses with strong foundations, using mostly local material that would withstand wind storms and floods.
Ms Nkaw said the government responded with little help that included five mini bags of rice, five bags of beans, 30 mini bags of maize, five bales of used clothes, 90 pieces of blankets, 40 pieces of mats and five lanterns which were given to only a few of the affected people.
The World Food Programme (WFP) sent 1,066 bags of maize, 174 cartons of oil, 153 bags of beans and 26 bags of salt which are being distributed to the people.
She said as most of the victims had nothing to harvest, they would not be able to support themselves until the next farming season as those of them who usually engage in dry season farming lost their seeds and have no money to start all over again.
Ms Nkaw appealed to the District Assembly to consider including disaster management in its annual budget so that in times of disaster, the district could help the people while awaiting more assistance from NGOs and the central government.
Mr Thomas Awanga, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of ALP, said the programme facilitated the formation and inauguration of the District Disaster Management Committee as part of its activities to help prepare vulnerable communities to better adapt to the effects of climate change.
"Despite the efforts of ALP to help communities prepare for disaster, it is disappointing those victims of flood in the area where ALP works should be left with little help in such difficult times", he said.
Mr Awanga appealed to NGOs that have structures to respond to disasters to make provision for some resources to be put aside annually to help people in times of disaster.
Alhaji Abulai Abubakar, District Coordinating Director, said the District Assembly held an emergency meeting after the disaster and decided to repair roads in Garu, the district capital, and schools that were damaged so that pupils could continue to go to school.
He said the assembly had no more funds to help the people with material things but had embarked on a programme to educate those living in low lying areas to move to higher ground while those who farm near river banks find land somewhere else to do so as the floods had become an annual occurrence.