World Bank okays $200m for flood management in Ibadan The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors has approved $200 million credit to improve Oyo State’s disaster risk management capabilities, strengthen community-based resilience capacity and provide support for risk assessment and early warning systems in Ibadan, the state capital. In approving the credit, the bank noted that Ibadan’s poorest and most vulnerable residents were the most affected by floods. It observed that the most recent floods of August 2011, caused significant human and economic losses primarily in housing, education, agriculture and transport. According to the bank, the project’s investments would have considerable long-term benefits such as improved city functioning and less impacts of flooding on livelihoods and other socio-economic activities in the city. Marie-Francoise Nelly, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, who spoke on the new approval, stated that recognising the need for an integrated and long-term solution to flooding in Ibadan, the Oyo State government requested the bank’s support to finance a flood management project. She noted that the Ibadan Urban Flood Management project would benefit the 3.1 million people living in the city, and specifically the 40,200 who reside in flood prone areas. According to her, the project would establish early warning and flood response actions and also finance the rehabilitation of Ibadan city drains, roads and bridges, as well as restore the flood damaged Eleyele dam. The project, she noted, would develop a long-term flood risk management framework and reinforce Oyo State government’s early warning and response capabilities and leverages on existing World Bank projects such as the Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) in the state. She said, “Nigerian cities are growing at a scale never seen before and are exposing more people to disaster impacts. Floods and other climate-related shocks are a severe threat to the achievement of the country’s development goals. “It is critical that these cities are able to face these significant challenges, and prepare for potential natural disasters and climate change,” she said. Also speaking, Sateh Chafic El-Arnaout who is World Bank Task Team Leader for the project stated that, “By promoting a policy shift from reactive disaster response to preventive flood risk management, both the Federal and
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 09:00:31 +0000
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