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Date : 19/02/2004
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government
Title: N Botha: Integrated Measures for Drought Relief and Food Security, NCOP


SPEECH DELIVERED BY MS NGW BOTHA, DEPUTY MINISTER FOR PROVINCIAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, IN THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES, 19 February 2004

TOPIC: Integrated Measures for Drought Relief and Food Security

We have had fairly good rains in some parts of our country in recent weeks, but there is no reason to be complacent and pretend that all is well. South Africa is still in the middle of a drought cycle. The experts, meteorologists and hydrologists, estimate that it would take anything between three to five years of good rains to get us out of this drought.

The experts seem to agree that South Africa is a desert-like country where rain is the exception rather than the rule. Professor Hannes Rautenbach, head of the University of Pretoria's meteorology unit, has been quoted as saying "We're on the 13th degree of latitude south. It's a very dry degree of latitude. In both the northern and southern hemispheres it's the degree on which you find the great deserts".

This drought has brought immense suffering to our economy, environment and to the lives of our people, particularly those who live in the deep rural areas. One has to actually visit these rural areas to begin to fully understand the negative impact this drought is having on the lives of our rural poor.

Ministers and Deputy Ministers were deployed in January and February to these drought-stricken areas to go and see for themselves, listen and report to communities on what actions government is taking to alleviate their plight. What we have witnessed was poor conditions our people have been living under for many, many years. These conditions were aggravated by the ongoing drought, lack of natural vegetation (and this includes grass for grazing), the arid lands, crop failure, dying livestock - too weak to walk with bones protruding through their bodies. This was indeed a sorry sight.

However, we were also overwhelmed by the resilience and humility of our people under these trying conditions. They were full of hope, knowing that our government cares for them, listens to them and responds promptly to their plight.

Experts say the current drought is the worst to have hit South Africa in a century. This act of God is a normal and recurrent feature of the South African climate and has resulted in significant economic, environmental and social losses, all highlighting our vulnerability to this natural phenomenon.

Drought normally occurs in cycles. Recent droughts experienced in South Africa occurred in 1982-83, 1991-92 and 1997-98. Although the 1997-98 El Nino was comparable with the strong El Nino event of 1882-83, the country was fortunate in that the severe and adverse effects predicted at the time, did not materialize.

It was reported that the 1991-92 drought had caused serious harm to the economy. It was estimated that about 49 000 jobs were lost in the agricultural sector and about 20 000 jobs were lost in the non-agricultural sector. It also had negative effect on the country's current account of balance of payments.

The effects of the present drought are far worse than that of 1997-98. The dam levels are much lower and the forecast for the remainder of the summer rainfall season suggests a persistence of an erratic rainfall pattern. With the winter season on our doorsteps, the impact of drought on our people's lives is expected to worsen.

Hence Cabinet in January decided to allocate further R500 million for a drought mitigation programme in the next financial year. This is in addition to the R250 million allocated in October last year and a further R250 million allocated in January this year for emergency relief. The overall goal of this programme amongst others (as mentioned earlier) is to mitigate the impact of drought across all affected sectors of society in the country and also to provide assistance to farmers, both commercial and subsistence in order to curb job losses and minimize economic set backs.

We want to emphasize, here and now, that there is nothing in these allocations that suggest that while commercial farmers are the sole beneficiaries of government's drought mitigation programme. On the contrary, poor rural households are the main beneficiaries. We are doing this conscious of the fact that it is the poorest of the poor that are worst affected by the drought.

The R500 million budgeted for in the next financial year is for long-term interventions to limit people's dependence on grants and aid. We need to make sure that our intervention strategies are sustainable and government, in partnership with all stakeholders, begins to revitalise the agricultural sector so that people can make a living.

When our new democratic government came into power in 1994 it realized that there were serious weaknesses and constraints in the disaster management policy of the previous apartheid government. Since then our government has developed policies and disaster management strategies that can be implemented in a more pro-active way.

After the June 1994 floods on the Cape Flats, Cabinet decided to assess South Africa's ability to deal with risk reduction and disaster management. This resulted in the review of disaster management structures and approaches in government.

Drought is one of the natural disasters that are often difficult to manage and cannot be tackled by an agricultural sector alone. The co-ordinated team efforts of a number of role players are an essential part of the management of drought.

It is very important to understand that the costs of mitigating the effects of drought are extremely high and thus the management of resources becomes critical. We must, therefore, ensure that the management of resources is an integral part of any plan or strategy to address the drought situation.

Government's medium to long-term programmes will further strengthen the country's capacity to moderate the impact of drought. These include asset recovery through preservation of breeding stock, distribution of seeds, improving food and water security, raising awareness and capacity building at community level, and introducing new agricultural and water management and harvesting technologies to mitigate the future impact of drought.

The Disaster Management Act 57/2002 provides for the establishment of an Intergovernmental Committee on Disaster Management and a Disaster Management Advisory Forum comprising representatives from relevant national and provincial departments, the South African Local Government Association, business and various non-governmental organizations, which meets regularly. A standing agenda item on both these bodies is a presentation and discussion on predicted weather conditions as it often becomes necessary for policy makers, agriculturalists, business people and the general public to be provided with additional information regarding rainfall for decision making and planning.

From April last year, the Disaster Management Centre under the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) and the Department of Agriculture have issued a number of early warning systems to notify all those affected about expected weather patterns. The early warning system allows the National Disaster Management Centre to forecast weather patterns and it has forecast normal (which might explain the recent rainfalls) and below normal rainfall for 2003-04.

The National Disaster Management Centre is developing an electronic database that contains extensive information on disasters that occur or may occur in Southern Africa, including information on early warning systems.

The following Early Warning Systems are monitored by our National Disaster Management Centre:
* The development of tropical cyclones in the South Indian Ocean and early warnings are issued to areas expected to be affected
* The National American Space Agency website for the development of extreme weather patterns
* Net Forecasting for specific localised early warnings
* The Fire Danger Index has been developed for the monitoring of the possibility of veldt and forest fires
* In close liaison with Net Forecasting and SA Weather Service quarterly updates on the possible development of an El Nino/La Nina are produced.

The Disaster Management Act provides for an integrated disaster management policy that focuses on preventing or reducing the risk of disasters, mitigating the severity of disasters, emergency preparedness, rapid and effective response to disasters and post disaster recovery.

Disasters, in the past, were seen in the context of emergency responses and not as part of the long-term planning and development programmes of government.

The concept of disaster management needs to be integrated into our development strategies, as vulnerability to disasters can create development set-backs, which result in the aggravation of poverty situations.

Our visits to the drought-stricken areas has brought home to us the stark reality of under-development, serious backlogs of basic infrastructure and poverty in some of the rural areas.

The Minister of Finance, in his Budget Speech yesterday, referred to the adverse impact of disasters on economic growth. He pointed out "our economy has expanded for 20 consecutive quarters - the longest of continuous growth for over fifty years. However, (he said) the preliminary estimate of output growth of 1,9% last year is rather lower than 3,3% projected this time last year". He said, amongst others, "Factors contributing to slower growth included a sharp decline in agricultural production as a result of adverse weather conditions..."

Cabinet has also agreed that Food Price Monitoring Committee should, especially in this period, pay particular attention to the changes in food prices to prevent any unethical behaviour in the industry. This measure will also go a long way to mitigate the impact of this drought on our poor people.

Drought also affects the work we are doing, as government, in building sustainable rural and urban economies through programmes such as the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development and Urban Renewal Programmes. Some of our poverty alleviation programmes focus on agriculture and it means that, when drought strikes, progress is hampered and our programme of building sustainable rural economies is retarded. These projects provide a source of income, in addition to food security, and once disasters strike, the consequences are negative. It is for this reason that government decided that the focus in the next financial year would be on an agricultural recovery programme, amongst others.

The Disaster Management Act, also provides for the establishment of national, provincial and municipal disaster management centres. This is important for strengthening our system of intergovernmental relations, as well as partnerships with stakeholders, which we are building and consolidating as we enter our second decade of freedom.

Partnerships extend to our communities, our commercial farmers, small farmers, and subsistence farmers, who we met during our visits to provinces. In our interaction with them, they also made proposals on how they think we should tackle the drought question. We have taken their suggestions and they will be considered as we implement our drought recovery strategy. We would like to thank all the stakeholders and our partners for their invaluable contribution.

In conclusion, let me say that, the ongoing drought must also teach to use and preserve whatever resources we have, be it water or land, in a more efficient and prudent manner. We must start conserving water and begin to appreciate what we have.

We must commend the inter-ministerial committee comprising of the Departments of Water Affairs and Forestry, Agriculture, Health, Social Development and Provincial & Local Government in the role it has played in facilitating the prompt response of government to the plight of those affected by this drought. If we work together in an integrated way, we can minimize the impact of this drought.

Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
19 February 2004

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