Humanitarian ministry releases 2022 flooding assessment report

A Post Disaster Assessment report on the 2022 Flooding in Nigeria has been released by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

Presenting the report in Abuja, the Minister, Sadiya Farouq said that the objective of the Global Rapid Damage Estimation (GRADE) note, developed by the World Bank’s Disaster-Resilience Analytics and Solutions team, was to assess the economic impact of the June-November 2022 floods in the country.

She said that the GRADE assessment gives an overview of the nature of the flood disaster and its impact across Nigeria as well as sectoral and State-by-State effects, critical for planning.

“The GRADE note is a fast first-order approximation of the economic impact, and provides a rapid high-level estimate of damages used to inform ongoing decisions in a timely fashion. It was developed using the empirical data defined in this document, calibrated against historical data and experience, including the 2012 Nigeria Floods PDNA (Post-disaster Needs Assessment). The period of analysis is from June 2022 to 25th November 2022” Minister stated.

According to GRADE report, all the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory were affected by the 2022 flood in Nigeria with varying degrees of damages and people affected.

The analysis estimates that the total direct economic damages, based on currently reported statistics as of November 25th are in the range of $3.79 billion to $9.12 billion with the best (median) estimate at $6.68 billion.

This includes damages to residential and non-residential buildings (including building contents), as well as damages to infrastructure, productive sectors and to cropland”.

The Minister explained that the number of persons affected were more than 4.9 million people as at November 25th, 2022 with significant damage to infrastructure including roads, irrigation and river infrastructure as well as WASH and electricity infrastructure with around $1.23 billion ($0.959-$1.724 billion) in damage expected.

She said, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved an emergency intervention and livelihood programme for the victims.

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Nasir Gwarzo said that the Ministry and NEMA jointly sought a preliminary and quantitative spatial damage assessment which was considered to be faster than a traditional Post Disaster Needs Assessment and fairly accurate with the technical support from the World Bank Group.