Three days’ workshop on the Landslide and flood hazards and vulnerability in North-West of Rwanda: towards applicable land management and disaster risk reduction. The workshop was aimed to scope the project which will tackle on the landslide and floods issues.
Many Rwandese people are highly vulnerable to the impacts of landslides and floods. This vulnerability results from the sensitive environment and climate in combination with the large population pressure and poverty. As such, these hazards constitute a major obstacle to their socio-economic development. A key strategy in reducing the vulnerability to these disasters is an appropriate land use and land management, where high risks areas are avoided and/or land use is carefully planned to avoid the occurrence of these hazards further downstream. This is a strategy already followed by the Rwandese government.
Objectives of this project are:
- Better understanding and quantifying the role of land use, land management and land cover change regarding the occurrence of landslides and flood events.
- Provide reliable and applicable tools that allow assessing landslide and flood risks.
- Better understanding and quantifying the population’s vulnerability to landslide and flood risks.
- Increase research capacity of local partners to conduct scientific hazard and risk assessment.
- Build a strong partnership between local and national stakeholders as well as other actors involved in disaster risk reduction policies and measures.
During the closing ceremony of this tree days’ workshop on Thursday 27th June 2019, after presentation done by Dr. Emmanuel RUKUNDO from INES-Ruhengeri, people from different institutions; public, private and NGOs who were present discussed in order to contribute, to enrich the relevance of the project.
This project will contribute to several of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), including “taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” (SDG13) and “protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems […]” (SDG15). Likewise, it corresponds to the action priorities of the United Nation Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and in particular “better understanding disaster risk” and “strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk” (UNISDR, 2015).