Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has presented the Global Rapid Damage Estimation (Post-Disaster) (GRADE) report on the 2022 flood situation in Nigeria.
Farouq, in a presentation at a media conference on Friday in Abuja, said the report was earlier presented to President Muhammadu Buhari who approved the necessary interventions to help the victims of the 2022 floods across the country.
He said the purpose of GRADE, which was developed by the World Bank’s Disaster-Resilience Analytics and Solutions (D-RAS) team, was to assess the economic impact of the floods that devastated Nigeria between June and November 2022.
According to him, the GRADE assessment provides an overview of the nature of flood disasters and their impact on Nigeria.
He explained that it also provides sectoral and country effects, which are important for planning.
The minister said that the assessment is an important tool to understand the effects of floods on the people, especially vulnerable groups and their coping capacity.
Farouq stressed that it can also be used to identify the most urgent recovery needs and the best way to reconstruct critical sectors and infrastructure.
“I want to take this opportunity to assure all well-meaning Nigerians that the Federal Government has responded to the 2022 floods and sent relief materials to all affected states.
“Furthermore, a summary copy of the GRADE report was sent to Mr. President, based on which he approved the emergency and livelihood intervention program for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
“Furthermore, the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) will be encouraged to use aspects of the GRADE assessment to plan the recovery and rehabilitation of flood victims.
“I call on all responding MDAs in the federal, state and local governments to also use this GRADE assessment to resolve the fate of the 2022 flood victims,” Farouq said.
The minister explained that some of the main findings of GRADE are that all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory are affected by the 2022 floods in Nigeria, with the level of damage and the people affected.
According to Farouq, “this analysis estimates that the total direct economic damage, based on statistics currently reported on November 25, 2022, is in the range of $3.79 billion to $9.12 billion with the best (median) of approximately $6.68 billion.
“This includes damage to residential and non-residential buildings, as well as damage to infrastructure, the productive sector and agricultural land.
“The estimated median damage is generally lower than the 2012 (PDNA) assessment, but some local areas may experience a greater impact than in 2012, and previous seasons such as 2018.
“The number of people affected has increased during the season since June to between 4.4 million and 4.9 million people affected by November 25, 2022 (about 2 percent of the country’s population).
“In terms of damaged and destroyed buildings, there has been significant damage in many countries, which is still ongoing.
“Also, significant damage to infrastructure including roads, irrigation and river infrastructure as well as WASH and electricity infrastructure.
“Damage to agricultural crops, related water infrastructure, fisheries and livestock is also severe,” Farouq said.
Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, in his earlier statement said that Farouq gave his approval to request support from the World Bank during the peak of the flood in 2022 to help the ministry make an assessment.
“This is because, the evaluation of the impact of a major disaster requires a minimum of six months of hard work and diligence and several layers of activities; therefore, we chose a new technology called GRADE.
“This is the first time it has been distributed in sub-Saharan Africa, and of course, it is the first time it has been distributed in Nigeria. The minister gave us permission to ask for this support and fortunately the World Bank helped us.
“They commissioned a series of Search Lights Stations around the world, especially in the United States and Australia that monitor our special horizon for at least 14 days.
“We compared the data they saw at that time and the six-month data from the flood season and they got these results,” Sani-Gwarzo said.