GENEVA, Switzerland, October 7, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — In response to the flooding of 2013 and the subsequently displaced population of over 150,000 persons, the government of Mozambique established voluntary relocation sites for the most vulnerable districts in Gaza Province. These locations will offer refuge should the area be hit by another natural disaster.
With financial support from the People of Japan, IOM carried out an ambitious plot registration campaign that will provide families with the exact address of their new plot. The registration was done by teams of field monitors hired by IOM who registered over 5,000 family plots in 7 resettlement communities in just over 2 weeks. The plots will serve as evacuation sites for many of the most at-risk families residing along the Limpopo River bed, and a move in permanent residence for others.
IOM also created a database system for the government that will track basic demographic information on the registered families and plots in order to easily coordinate the distribution of non-occupied plots to interested families currently sitting on a waiting list. This process hopes to ensure that all at-risk families will have a designated safe area of their own, greatly reducing the need for large-scale transit zones.
Further, the introduction of the database will allow for the development of a comprehensive evacuation plan should damaging floods hit the area again in the future. The database will soon be passed along to district officials trained in its use and maintenance.
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