BY Nyima Sillah
The United Arab Emirates on Thursday donated 48 tons of food items to the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) as a support to the 2021 disaster victims in The Gambia, the donation was held at the Banjul International Airport (BIA).
Speaking to press corps at the airport, Saif, Head of African Affairs Ministry of Information said the purpose of their visit is to give aid from the United Arab Emirates to their brother and friend country, The Gambia.
“This is the first time and it’s going to be a continuous partnership. We are very happy to come here, we thank Gambia for the hospitality and all the support they give us and we are happy to work with them,” Saif said.
Sanna A. Dahaba, Executive Director National Disaster Manager Agency also said they are going to quantify the various items that are brought and also look at their response plans so that the items can serve their intended purpose. Adding, the response is categorised into different aspects some people only need housing and others only need food.
“NDMA has a response plan and an assessment has been conducted since last year so we are going to look at those assessments based on the highest priority ranking so that the response to the most in need who were affected by the wind storm,” he explained.
Meanwhile, “The focus of the Gambian government is not on response, the focus is on mitigation from now on our partnership will focus on mitigation that would actually reduce the impact of disaster in this country,”
“The annual disaster response in this country in monetary terms is D500 Million that is a lot of money that is why we have been a paramount response to mitigation that goes through the process based on availability of funding. We are working with partners and with the government,” he added.
Mr Dahaba added that The UAE is not the only country that they visited during their visit to Dakar and hoped that other countries will also emulate what the UAE is doing.
He therefore, expressed gratitude to the UAE on behalf of The Gambia government for the kind gesture and assured them that the gesture will serve its purpose by supporting the vulnerable people in the country.
