The National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said Tuesday that it needs an additional $217 million from donors and NGOs to help recovery efforts from the floods of September and October 2013.
Speaking at the launch of a report on the effectiveness of the response to last year’s floods, the NCDM’s vice president said there was still a large shortfall in funding for flood recovery.
“We call on our development partners to provide more funds. We call on national and international organizations and civil society to provide financial and technical support,” said Nhim Vanda, NCDM vice president.
A document accompanying the Post-Flood Early Recovery Needs Assessment Report, prepared by the government with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program, shows that the government has received only $88.01 million of the $306 million it needs for recovery efforts.
Mr. Vanda did not specify where the additional funds would be directed, but the document says they are needed for “infrastructure,” “economic sectors,” and “social sectors.”
The document also said the government had provided $5.14 million in immediate humanitarian aid after the floods, while NGOs and other donors gave an additional $1.3 million.
More than 31,000 homes were evacuated, 168 people died and the country incurred a total of $356 million in damages and losses in the floods of September and October, according to NCDM figures.
Napoleon Navarro, UNDP deputy country director, said Tuesday that the NCDM was often hampered in its work by the difficulty of coordinating between many different ministries.
“The role of the NCDM is to get the right ministry to do the right thing,” Mr. Navarro said. “The NCDM has no budget and no resources, and most ministries have yet to understand the value of disaster risk reduction.”
“Clean water, for example, is one of the biggest issues here. The NCDM can only suggest what action needs to be taken in the time of disaster but the money remains at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology,” he added.
