Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq has presented the Global Rapid (Post Disaster) Damage Estimation (GRADE) Assessment report of the 2022 flood situation in Nigeria.
Farouq, in her presentation at a media conference Friday in Abuja, said that the report was earlier presented to President Muhammadu Buhari who approved the needed intervention to assist victims of the 2022 floods across the country.
She said the objective of the GRADE, developed by the World Bank’s Disaster-Resilience Analytics and Solutions (D-RAS) team, was to assess the economic impacts of the flood that ravaged Nigeria between June and November 2022.
According to her, the GRADE assessment gives an overview of the nature of the flood disaster and its impacts across Nigeria.
She explained that it also gave the sectoral and state-by-state effects, which were critical for planning.
The Minister said that the assessment had become a vital tool to understanding the effects of the floods on people, especially the vulnerable groups and their coping capacity.
Farouq emphasised that it could also be used to identify the most urgent recovery needs and the best methods of the reconstruction of critical sector and infrastructure.
“I would like to seize this opportunity to assure all well-meaning Nigerians that the Federal Government FG has been responding to the 2022 flood and sending relief materials to all affected states.
“Furthermore, an abridged copy of the GRADE report was submitted to Mr President, based on which he graciously approved emergency intervention and livelihood programme for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).