Thirty people on thursday completed a training course in post disaster needs assessment (pdna), effectively constituting a national pool of experts in disaster assessment and response. The training was organised by the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness and Refugee Affairs.

These experts will in turn train others at the local level.

According to Seraphine Mukantabana, the Minister for Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs, there have been capacity challenges in conducting post disaster needs assessment, which impeded timely recovery of communities devastated by disasters.

"It is the first technical training to enhance capacity in effective recovery informed by statistics. An estimated 2,000 households every year fall victim to disasters but recovery takes unnecessarily long. With professional skilled experts we expect timely intervention,” she said

The workshop was facilitated by experts from UNDP, European Union and the World Bank and the trainees are drawn from different Ministries and other government institutions, UN agencies and NGOs.

 UNDP Resident Coordinator, Lamin Manneh highlighted the need for continuous capacity building to set up long-term disaster resilience mechanisms.

"This is intrinsically linked to ongoing preparedness and risk reduction work in normal development processes. It is imperative that the recovery process does not re-build risk, but rather strengthen the resilience of affected communities to face possible future hazards,” he said.

He added that African countries need to reinforce and put in place more coherent policies, protocols and standard operating procedures for rebuilding sustainably in the aftermath of disasters which requires capacity support and financial framework.

The UN coordinator also said PDNA methodology was designed by United Nations, World Bank and European Union as one of key commitments a joint declaration on post crisis cooperation signed in 2008.