Sierra Leone is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to natural hazards.
According to the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of 2018, the West African country was the 21st most vulnerable of the 182 countries studied. It was also ranked the 50th least prepared.
The lack of preparedness and weak emergency response have been blamed on insufficient policy and institutional structures for disaster risk reduction.
Policy and institutional gaps have left half of Sierra Leone’s 7 Million citizens exposed to hazards including floods, landslides and epidemics.
And now the country has created a national disaster risk management agency to turn a new page in the way it anticipates and responds to hazards.
