The Nairobi County has won funding from the United Kingdom for development of Disaster Management Policy.
The sponsorship is from Research and Innovation programme Global Challenges Research Fund.
The Nairobi Risk Hub, which is a project spearheaded by the County Department of Disaster Management, will benefit from the £1.5 million (Sh152 million).
The Nairobi Risk Hub is a five-year project starting in March 2019.
It will provide considerable support for the development of risk management policy and underlying data with £1.5 million in applied research funding over the next three years and additional resources then available.
Dr Mark Pelling, the Professor in Geography at King’s College London, who are the sponsors of the project, said this will be an opportunity for Nairobi to develop policies, training and development of risk and vulnerability assessment and management decision-support tools.
“It is with great pleasure that I can confirm to you that the Nairobi Risk Hub has won funding from the UK Research and Innovation programme Global Challenges Research Fund,” said Pelling.
He said the planned programme of work builds on ongoing collaboration with Ann Mwenda, County Chief Officer Disaster Management Coordination and Brian Kisali, the Deputy Director Fire Rescue and Disaster Management of the Nairobi City County Government through the Urban Africa Risk Knowledge programme.
“The application for funding was led for the Nairobi City County by Eva Wairuko and Joseph Githoro, who we wish to acknowledge,” added Pelling.
Other hubs in Istanbul, Kathmandu and Quito will provide an opportunity to showcase lessons from Nairobi and to learn from risk management experiences in these other cities including through exchanges of staff where this is beneficial to the NCCG.
“There will be opportunities for policy development, training and development of risk and vulnerability assessment and management decision-support tools,” he said.
Pelling said the collaboration of the Nairobi City County Government has been and will be central to shaping planned work which, following the ambition of the NCCG, has the aim of supporting the transition towards integrating risk management into development policy and practice in Nairobi.
In March this year, Pelling will hold a first substantial activity with NCCG Disaster Management and Coordination Sector.
The three-day meeting will be held in Mombasa to review the Nairobi County Disaster Management Act 2015 and help develop a Nairobi Disaster Management Plan and Policy.
“This will be a closed meeting with invitees from the World Bank, UN agencies and across the NCC and Kenyan Government. We would be honoured if His Excellency Governor of Nairobi Mike Sonko would come and grace the occasion,” he said.