UN wants change in addressing disaster issues

A United Nations (UN) ambassador for climate change and El Nino has urged partners involved in addressing issues of drought to change the way they do business.
That was the message from Macharia Kamau during a consultation in Port Moresby last Friday where he shared some new approaches the UN had taken to tackle disaster issues.
“We are all going to change the way we do business because if you look at the sustainable development goals and the 2030 agenda of the UN, you will see the issues that you are dealing with. Issues of disaster management, of resilience, governance, rule of law, gender, children and human rights,” he said.
“PNG is also facing similar issues so this is the approach we are taking. Because of the goals, we are all going to be changing the way in which we do business moving forward.
“This is an important issue because we have found that a lot of us have been working in silence. Many of the organisations are been challenged whether they are still fit for purpose, whether they are still really resonating with the challenges as they manifest themselves today.
Kamau issued a challenge by asking if it was tolerable that those organisations remain in the business that they are in, in societies with levels of poverty and development.
“Is it acceptable to say that an organisation that’s been in the country for 20 years and claims to be transforming that society and is raising money around the world to help that country beat poverty and you come back there 20 years later and it looks as if that organisation was never there?
“We have a morale challenge that’s now being put in front of us by the sustainable development goals and the 2030 agenda and that morale challenge is to say, is it really credible that we can remain in this business and still be tolerant of such high levels of poverty and discrimination.
“You need to work yourselves out of jobs because that’s the essence of what we ought to do so that we need to move further up. We’ve got to show that we are not in this business just to be in this business.
UN partners at the consultation outlined their efforts in addressing the impacts of the recent drought.