By FLAVIOR CHISHALA –

. WINA

VICE-PRESIDENT Inonge Wina says there is need for Zambia to concentrate on disaster risk reduction as opposed to disaster management.
Ms Wina said climate change issues should also start taking the centre stage at global, sub-regional and national levels.
Ms Wina, who is also Development Planning minister, said this when she launched three national policies under the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) in Lusaka yesterday.
Among the policies launched were the national resettlement policy, the disaster management operations manual, and the revised national disaster management policy.
She said the revised national disaster management policy would set the parameters within which all stakeholders in disaster risk reduction would operate.
Ms Wina said the operations manual would on the other hand spell out roles and responsibilities during, before and after a disaster.
She said the Government had for a long time been implementing resettlement programmes without a policy document, hence the need to have a national resettlement policy that would provide mechanisms for dealing with both voluntary and involuntary resettlements in the country.
The Vice-President said the policy would also create opportunities for self-employment on land for the target groups, including the retired, retrenched and displaced persons.
The policy would, among other things, improve access to public social services by creating viable settlements as opposed to unplanned scattered ones.
It would also create new growth points for rural investment and development by providing social and economic infrastructure.