Adamawa Govt Reiterates Commitment To Improve Lives Of IDPs

5 years ago

Adamawa Govt Reiterates Commitment To Improve Lives Of IDPs

The Adamawa Dep. Governor, Mr Martins Babale, on Wednesday reiterated the commitment of the state government to improve the lives of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in camps across the state.[/b]

Babale gave this assurance when the mission team of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), an emergency working group, paid him a visit in his office.

According to him, the state government is aware of the challenges at the various camps and a memo has been raised to address them.

He said that the broken down perimeter fence in Malkohi Camp had been addressed, adding that the food storage warehouse whose roof was recently blown off was also being addressed.

The dep. governor said that although the state was relatively peaceful, it was however experiencing skirmishes of violence within its border towns with Borno and Cameroon.

“The mission of the state government is to see that the humanitarian needs of the IDPs are met to ensure that they live normal lives and integrate into the society.

“Our development partners have been supporting us in the delivery of WASH facilities to the camps.

“We, however, call for more support to meet the humanitarian needs of the state.

The Commissioner for Water Resources, Alhaji Ahmed Rufai, who welcomed the WASH team, said that the ministry’s mission was to make adequate safe drinking water and basic sanitation available to the people at an affordable cost.

Rufai said the ministry sought to ensure that every household had access to WASH, regardless of their location and in a sustainable manner.

He commended the efforts of all development partners supporting the state government and pledged its commitment to pay all counterpart funds on water and sanitation.

“I appreciate the good working relationship between the Federal and the state ministry of Water Resources.’’

Rufai added that the state government had harmonised all humanitarian interventions through proper coordination, to reduce duplication of efforts.

Responding, the WASH Team Leader, Mr Baba Galadima, said the visit was to assess all interventions carried out by development partners.

Galadima said that the visit was also to monitor the Federal Government’s water and sanitation projects in the state.

“It is important to identify challenges currently being faced and steps that have been taken towards knowing what interventions are needed and what could be done.

“Our team will also visit the IDP camps in the state to assess water and toilet availability for the overall goal of preventing occurrences of water-borne diseases,’’ the team leader said.

On his part, the UNICEF Representative in Adamawa, Mr Yohanna Audu, said it was building the capacity of organisations working on emergency response on how to assess funds from the 2018 Humanitarian Response Fund.

Audu said this was necessary to make adequate contributions in interventions and implementing programmes to reduce possible outbreak of preventable diseases and deaths.

He said it was important to note that humanitarian issues in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States had different contexts, hence the need to support new levels of approaches in delivering WASH interventions.

The UNICEF representative expressed sadness that there was no guideline from the UN High Commission for Refugees that would give a roadmap on resettling returning IDPs.