Building flood disaster resilience of SMEs in urban cities of Nigeria

The preponderances in the occurrence of flood disasters in Nigeria as a developing country poses a huge challenge for inhabitants with concomitant effects on the built environment. The effects however cannot be over-emphasized as sources of income and employment generation emanating from the engagement of residents in small, medium and large-scale enterprises are often brought to an abrupt halt. At the wake of flood events, such businesses as Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) are adversely affected as a result of inadequate preparedness and mitigation strategies, in some instances recovery and reconstruction in the aftermath may take a longer period of time and may be almost impossible because these businesses hardly take up insurance policies which is undoubtedly caused by high level of poverty. This implies amongst other overarching issues that revenue generated from taxes accruable to government will be affected; business owners will lose out on profits, employment levels will dwindle and on the long run the overall performance of the economy may be affected. This paper therefore uses an exploratory qualitative method to examine the effects of flood disasters on SMEs, explores through the use of literature review the concept of resilience and as well suggests a framework through which small businesses can be able to cope during and after flood disasters. The paper however reveals that SMEs that adopt resilient strategies can be able to sustain business activities during and after flood events. It therefore concludes that strategies, if applied may offer a long lasting solution to number of constraints SMEs face, significantly reduce economic losses and promote sustainability of businesses and livelihoods in the aftermath of flood events.