The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Friday, trained 62 staff of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and their state counterparts on emergency management and disaster risk reduction.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the four-day training was organised in collaboration with the United States Forest Service.
Mr Scott Dehnisch, Senior Technical Advisor, Emergency Management Systems, USAID, said that the training was aimed at improving the operational capacity of officials when confronted with disasters.
“This particular training is an operational planning training and it focuses on how to handle all types of disasters.
“Ranging from air craft crashes, flooding, building collapse among others.
“We will also have five to six capacity building trainings so that at the end, we will have master trainers and support groups that will also train other staff.
“We are doing this to support the government of Nigeria to be able to develop a perfect operational plan for rescuers to do their work effectively.
“It will also help the national agency understand how to collaborate with those at the state level as well,” he said.
Mr Mustapha Maihaja, Director General, NEMA, appreciated the U.S government for the training and urged the participants to apply whatever they learnt in their day to day activities.
He added that it was important for the participants to understand their roles and responsibilities in incident command and operational planning.
“Operational planning as we all know can be described as the process of linking strategic goals and objectives to tactical goals and objectives.
“It describes milestones conditions for success and explains what portion of strategic plan will be considered during an operational period.
“Therefore, application of this course to disaster management will be of great benefit to this nation.
“Especially at this period when we are faced with different hazards including flooding, insurgency and other climate change related occurrences,” he said.
A participant, Ms Comfort Odumu, Principal Training Officer, NEMA, who appreciated the U.S government for the training, said she learnt how to coordinate relevant officials during a search and rescue operation. (NAN)