Mr Alhassan Samari, Upper East Regional Minister on Tuesday said the challenges of the past disaster caused by floods in the region called for an effective collaboration between the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and its stakeholders. Mr Samari said this when he opened a three-day Emergency Management Course in Bolgatanga, organised for personnel of NADMO, and representatives of Ghana Red Cross, Environmental Protection Agency, Fire Service, Ghana Health Service, Social Welfare and District Chief Executives all drawn from the region. The course was aimed at building the capacity of the participants to coordinate more in responding to emergencies. Mr Samari urged the participants to actively participate in discussing and finding solutions that would forestall the devastating effects of disasters in the region. He said the August-September floods the disaster affected all sectors of the socio-economic life of the region, such as agriculture, food security, roads and bridges, water, sanitation and shelter. In the agricultural sector, about 12,220.17 hectares of farmlands were destroyed resulting in the loss of 13,880.55 metric tones of foodstuffs. Twenty-nine highway roads, at a total length of 427.4 kilometres and 54 feeder roads, 542 kilometres long across the region and 58 bridges and culverts were either damaged or destroyed. Dr. Kwaku Osei-Akom, Deputy National Coordinator, NADMO, noted that disaster could affect anybody at anytime and called on all Ghanaians to extend help to all, in times of disaster. He explained that the North Dakota National Guard from the USA was in partnership with NADMO to help train and prepare NADMO personnel in the country to effectively respond to disaster. The participants would discuss disaster management overview and core principles, key elements of an emergency operations plan, international disaster management standards, community emergency response teams and incident management and incident command system overview. Source: GNA