Accra, October 10, 2007---Following the worst floods to strike Ghana in recent memory, CARE is calling for better emergency planning and disaster risk reduction efforts to protect against future crises. October 10 marks International Disaster Risk Reduction Day, and CARE is using the occasion to advocate diversifying income sources, the creation of flood-resistant grain silos and contingency planning, to better prepare Ghana to resist future shocks. This summer's floods collapsed houses, washed away crops and killed livestock in Ghana's Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions. Farmers in the north now face an economic struggle to reconstruct their lives and find alternate ways of surviving until next year's harvest, which will not be until June, 2008. CARE is currently distributing three-week rations of maize in 20 communities - to help people hold out until more substantial food rations can be distributed - and is planning agricultural recovery activities that will help people re-build their farms, gardens, and livestock herds. The floods have also had an impact on education. "The rain destroyed all my books and I have no place to study," explains 15-year-old Rufine Awanyeka of Tiemdema in Upper East. " I can't learn, because I am hungry all the time." Whether this year's floods were caused by global warming or not, there is no question that Ghanaians feel that weather patterns are different. "When asked about the biggest risks that they face, community members list changing rainfall patterns, longer droughts, and increasing floods," says Angie Dazé, CARE's Regional Climate Change Advisor, who just returned from traveling through villages in northern Ghana. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that climate change could halve Africa's food production by 2020, causing severely compromised food security. CARE plans to work on disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness planning with communities in Ghana's three northern regions. The government of Ghana has already outlined its commitment to increase emergency planning on the district and regional levels. "Disaster risk reduction is essential if we want to reduce the population's vulnerability to the climate's impact," says CARE's Angie Dazé.

Press contacts: Marcy Vigoda --Mission Director, CARE Gulf of Guinea email: vigoda@caregog.org; tel: 233-21-7012993 / 7012996; Ken Walker (Johannesburg) walker@caresa.co.za; +27 82 336 8312 William Dowell (Geneva) dowell@careinternational.org; tel: +41 79 590 3047;