| Overview : Uganda remains susceptible to highly devastating disasters, including hydrological, geological, climatic and human-induced that exert a significant toll on its population and impose a significant socio-economic cost and which, to some extent, affects the country’s ability to maximize the benefits from its economic growth and social development. Over the past decades, the incidences of devastating disasters have increased in frequency, intensity and geographical spread. The country remains vulnerable to a range of hazards that, if not prevented and mitigated, can once again result in disasters. With impacts of climate variability and change becoming more pronounced leading to increasing incidence of climate-induced disasters and wide-ranging impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people, the need to mainstream disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into the development planning process and to build capacities for reducing and mitigating their impacts has been recognized by the Government of Uganda (GoU) in the second National Development Plan (NDP) and other policy pronouncements. As part of UNDP’s support to the Government of Uganda on strengthening capacities for disaster risk management and resilience building, UNDP has supported the National Emergency Coordination and Operations Centre (NECOC), at the Office of the Prime Minister, since its establishment in 2014. The NECOC provides timely and early warning information on disasters, climate modelling and forecasting, and also help coordinate emergency responses. |
