Stakeholders unite to protect communities during extreme weather events
Freetown, Sierra Leone
The Sierra Leone team of the Urban SHADE consortium conducted several workshops between May and June with various stakeholders, including state bodies, to roll out the project’s interventions. Government authorities participated actively in these workshops and are keen to see the interventions through.
Urban SHADE focuses on improving health system delivery during extreme weather events in informal settlements. The intervention pilot brought disaster management authorities together with relevant health departments to build sustainable plans for health system preparedness in informal settlements. The workshops also helped formalise partnerships with stakeholders and clarify roles and responsibilities for all actors before, during, and after extreme weather events.
The authorities involved in disaster management, early warning, and local administration include:
• Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency (SL-MET)
• National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA)
• National Fire Force (NFF)
• Freetown City Council (FCC)
The health authorities included:
• Ministry of Health, Climate Change Unit and the Health Education Department
• National Public Health Agency (NPHA)
• District Health Management Team (DHMT)
Some of the key activities planned during the workshops for health-related outputs include:
• Co-Developing a response checklist for health professionals
• Co-Developing a disaster response plan for frontline workers
• Preparing IEC materials and infographics to raise awareness of health and climate emergency response. These are mainly pictorial and produced in English, and will be validated by the community and subject experts, with a plan for distribution across public health units and other community channels
• Co-creating a communication plan for early warning messages that uses existing channels (CDMC WhatsApp group, megaphones, door-to-door outreach, visual alerts, and so on)
The Urban SHADE consortium thanks all the state actors for their active cooperation.
