Disaster Risk Reduction in Nicaragua, a DIPECHO project

During the last month I have partecipated in some meetings  between GVC and other organisations involved in the  project “Community Based Disaster Preparedness and Institutional Strengthening to Increase Resilience in the Homogenous Cross Border Region of La Moskitia Honduras and Nicaragua” funded by ECHO and executed by GOAL in Honduras in the Department of Gracias a Dios and by GVC in Nicaragua in the RAAN North Atlantic Autonomous Region.

This project is part of DIPECHO (Disaster Preparedness ECHO), a specific programme, dedicated to disaster preparedness launched by ECHO in 1996 that had been expanded over the years and now covers eight disaster prone regions: the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Central Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, South East Africa and South West Indian Ocean and Pacific Region. The projects funded by the DIPECHO Programme include simple preparatory measures, often implemented by the communities themselves organizing activities as training, capacity-building, awareness-raising, establishment or improvement of local early-warning systems and contingency-planning.

The DIPECHO programme has been designed to demonstrate measures and initiatives at community level and can serve as components of integrated disaster risk reduction strategies for a municipality, district or even at national level. However, Disaster Risk Reduction is a long-term development effort and ECHO is therefore encouraging other stakeholders that can provide longer-term financing to systematically integrate disaster risk reduction in their strategies.

The homogenous cross-border region of La Moskitia is one of Central America’s most vulnerable regions, most commonly affected by hydrometeorological hazards, highlighting the need for bi-national coordination in preparedness and response. The aim of these project is to contribute to the disaster resilience of this region  prioritizing the operation of the Preparedness and Response Protocols and the protection of livelihoods.

I took part in two meetings with GOAL the leader orgnisation for this project and with SE-SINAPRED, Nicaraguan Institute for Land Studies, Civil Defense, which is a local partner that will take part in the project. In the first meeting, with GOAL, I had the opportunity to understand better how to follow the different purchase procedures in this project and all the decision-making process. Also it was really interesting to take part in the first meeting here in Managua between GVC and GOAL staff about the coordination and communication tasks of both partners. Special detail was given to monitoring and evaluation and reporting requirements for each partner.

by David Wiersma