Published: July 25, 2024
MONROVIA — The Country Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) to Liberia, Dr. Peter Clement, has called for a collective effort and political will to achieve the Early Warning for All initiative by 2027.
Dr. Clement emphasized this need while speaking at the official launch of the Early Warning for All (EW4All) initiative, organized by the Liberian government through the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in Monrovia.
The EW4All initiative aims to secure institutional buy-in for its Action Plan by 2027, assess the current state of early warning systems in Liberia, and promote a shared understanding of progress in implementing its four pillars.
However, Dr. Clement stressed that the 2027 target cannot be met without the active participation and support of the government, political actors, and donor partners.
“Let’s work together to reduce the loss of human life, mitigate damage to economic, material, social, cultural, and environmental assets, and increase the resilience of our communities to disasters. 2027 is just around the corner. Let’s put our acts together. That is the only way we can meet this target,” he urged.
Dr. Clement expressed optimism that this momentum would lead to the establishment of effective solutions and systems to protect Liberians from the adverse impacts of natural hazards. He highlighted Liberia’s vulnerability to such hazards and the critical importance of disaster risk management for the country’s development.
“Although important, disaster risk management is a subject that sometimes struggles to stay high on the agenda,” Dr. Clement noted.
He emphasized that disaster risk management is multi-sectorial, influencing public investment, environmental management, land-use planning, agricultural practices, infrastructure resilience, building code compliance, law enforcement, civic education, and early warning systems.
“The aspects of political will, political leadership, governance, and coordination are absolutely central and deserve very strong, long-term commitments; they are the heart of the machine,” Dr. Clement said.
Dr. Clement also noted that the launch of this initiative reflects Liberia’s commitment to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), particularly Target G, which aims to significantly increase the availability and access to early warning systems in the country.
The national consultation on Early Warnings for All aims to secure buy-in from political leadership and commitment from a broad range of national stakeholders across the entire Early Warning Systems (EWS) value chain. It also seeks to establish a national coordination mechanism to guide the scale-up of early warning systems and to develop a multi-year, multi-stakeholder EW4All National Roadmap (2024-2027) to achieve universal and sustainable early warning coverage in Liberia.
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