* What is mitigation?
* What is the value of mitigation to the Guyanese society?
* Mitigation at work
What is Mitigation?
According the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) mitigation is defined as the lessening or limitation of the adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters. The adverse impacts of hazards often cannot be fully prevented, but their scale or severity can be substantially lessened by various strategies and actions. Mitigation measures encompass improved environmental policies and public awareness (non-structural measures) as well as engineering techniques and hazard-resistant construction (structural measures).
What is the Value of Mitigation to the Guyanese Society?
1. Mitigation creates safer communities by reducing losses of life and property and overall human suffering.
2. Mitigation enables individuals and communities to recover more rapidly from disasters.
3. Mitigation significantly reduces the need for large expenditure in the event of a national emergency
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Mitigation at Work
Hazard mitigation planning in Guyana adopts a three-pronged approach targeting three distinct levels:
1. Individual and community level:
Mitigation programmes convey an impassioned appeal to the individual to adopt basic mitigation strategies such as ensuring that roofs are reinforced with hurricane straps and retrofitting the home against hazards.
The community is also earmarked to promote the maintenance of localized areas such as keeping gullies free of debris, the protection of hillsides to prevent slope failure, and advocating for the cleaning of major drains in their communities.
Several government and other stakeholder agencies are participating in a two-day workshop to prepare a draft disaster plan for government.The Civil Defence Commission (CDC) is working to produce a dra...
