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1.1. The South African context
The development and social context
Like many countries in the world, South Africa is at risk from
a wide range of natural, technological and environmental hazards
that can lead to disasters such as droughts, floods, major fires,
tornadoes, major oil spills and even earthquakes. In the past
South Africa has pursued various strategies to counter the effects
of these disasters. However, it has now been recognised that these
strategies were not adequate. There is a need for a clear policy
on risk reduction and disaster management that is proactive and
not reactive.
Disaster management has to be placed in the context of the development
challenges that the country faces as a whole. These challenges
are set out in the government's Reconstruction and Development
Programme (RDP), which became the cornerstone vision for the government's
efforts at social and economic transformation. The central objective
of the RDP is to improve the quality of life of all South Africans.
Its major programmes focus on meeting basic needs, developing
human resources, democratising the state and society and building
the economy.
The Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy will
also significantly impact on the path that development takes in
the country. Gear - which is complementary to the RDP - is aimed
at macroeconomic changes. It is a framework for accelerated economic
growth coupled with rapid development in order to provide a sustained
increase in employment and reduction in poverty. These factors
are critical for reducing vulnerability to disasters.
With the potential increase in development programmes aimed at
employment creation, and the provision of housing, water and sanitation
facilities, building of new roads, industries, etc., planning
procedures will come under pressure to take approaches that allow
quick delivery. Within this context, short-term development needs
can compromise long-term sustainability and risk aversion unless
development is well-regulated.
Disaster-management policy in South Africa
After the June 1994 floods on the Cape Flats, Cabinet resolved
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. In 1995, Cabinet also
recommended that a formal structure for disaster management be
established. It resolved that the Department of Constitutional
Development, which administers the Civil Protection Act, No. 67
of 1977, would serve as the focal point for disaster management
in the interim, and that a national disaster-management committee
be formed at national level.
The national disaster-management committee was established and
constituted in February 1996. The committee's main function was
to serve as a coordinating and managing body. The committee has
not been fully functional. To strengthen government's commitment
to developing a national policy and strategy for disaster management,
Cabinet approved the formation of an inter-ministerial committee
for disaster management in mid-1997, consisting of ministers from
the following ministries:
- Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry.
- Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.
- Minister of Finance.
- Minister of Defence.
- Minister of Safety and Security.
- Minister of Public Works.
The inter-ministerial committee is being convened and chaired
by the Minister for Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development.
In order to move the policy process forward, the inter-ministerial
committee formed a task team in August 1997. The team was tasked
with tabling a Green Paper on disaster management for Cabinet
approval before the end of 1997.
To deal with immediate disaster issues, like the possible effects
of El Nino, the inter-ministerial committee has established an
interim disaster-management centre which comprises 10 national
government departments. The interim disaster-management centre
meets on a regular basis where its main function, at this stage,
is the coordination and dissemination of information and the design
of strategies to deal with disasters.
Counting the costs of some recent disasters
Quantifying exact damages is difficult - some disasters impact
far beyond the occurrence and restoration phase. However, the
estimates below show some of the results of recent disasters:
| PLACE |
DISASTER |
COST |
| LADYSMITH |
Floods: 1994 |
400 families evacuated
R50 million damages |
| LADYSMITH |
Floods: 1996 |
Damages to infrastructure
R25 million |
| MERRIESPRUIT |
Slimesdam: 1994 |
17 lives lost
R45 million damages |
| PIETERMARITZBURG |
Floods: 1995 |
173 lives lost
Emergency shelter needed for 5 500 |
| SOUTH AFRICA |
Drought: 1991-92 |
49 000 agricultural jobs lost
20 000 non-agricultural jobs lost
Negative effect on the current account of the balance of payments
(Estimated at R1,2 billion - Reserve Bank figure) |
| NORTHERN PROVINCE |
Floods: 1996 |
R105 million damages |
| MPUMALANGA |
Floods: 1996 |
R500 million damages |
The effects of disasters
In South Africa, disasters have resulted in the following:
- Migration of people from rural areas to urban centres to enhance
their survival chances. This movement is primarily as a result
of agricultural employment losses, due to drought.
- In many instances, this movement is also due to limited employment
opportunities in smaller towns and the belief that there is a
greater possibility of becoming gainfully employed in major centres.
The migration has resulted in uncontrolled urbanisation on vacant
land that is unsuitable for safe housing. In addition, the informal
settlements have been subjected to the rapid spread of fires and
flash floods. (The Cape Town metropolitan area and Greater Johannesburg
are typical examples.)
- Most important is the loss of life that occurred and that could
have been prevented. Examples of these are Laingsburg (104 lives
lost in 1981 due to floods), Merriespruit (17 lives lost in 1994)
and Pietermaritzburg floods (173 lives lost in 1995). The examples
quoted could have been avoided through better planning and control
measures, warning systems and community preparedness.
- Disasters have also resulted in environmental degradation and
have increased poverty. Several areas near rivers are occupied
by informal settlements without any or with only inadequate essential
services. This has resulted in high levels of pollution of the
rivers and the immediate environment. On farms, poor farming practices
have increased the degradation of the land.
- South Africa's development projects are hampered by recent disasters:
finances have been needed to address the consequences of floods,
fires and droughts, and this has reduced the funds available for
development.
- The social impact of disasters is difficult to measure: trauma,
depression and grief as a result of losses continue for long periods
after the disaster. These longer-term effects have a negative
impact on community life and economic activity.
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1.2. International framework
A number of international events have an important bearing on
the approaches and thinking that should inform disaster management
policy and strategies in South Africa. In 1989, the United Nations
General Assembly declared the decade between 1990-99 as the International
Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. This declaration was a
clear call for greater disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness.
Following this declaration, a world conference on natural disaster
reduction, held in Yokohama in May 1994, endorsed the International
Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction motion and further underlined
the link between disaster reduction and sustainable development.
The conference served as a mid-term review of what the scientific
and technical community, national governments, regional bodies
and the international organisations have done to prevent, mitigate
or prepare for disasters. Both the mid-term assessment and direction
for the future are summed up in the "Yokohama Message, Strategy
and Plan of Action for a Safer World" (1994).
The Yokohama conference also recognised the importance of the
Rio Earth Summit (1992). The Rio conference set out a number of
principles and action plans for sustainable development which
are detailed in the Agenda 21 programme. These have recently been
revisited at the "Rio plus 5" conference held in 1997 in Brazil,
and the Earth Summit meeting of heads of state. Of particular
importance is Principle 18 in Agenda 21. Principle 18 stresses
the need for the international community to assist states afflicted
by natural disasters and other emergencies that are likely to
produce sudden harmful effects in the environment of those states.
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1.3. Aim of the process towards a national policy for disaster management
To stimulate a consultative process, in order to establish and
sustain a holistic disaster-management structure and practice
that will support and enhance development in South Africa, through
risk management.
Green Paper on Disater Management Index | Top of page
1.4. Conceptual framework
Disaster management has traditionally been viewed as an approach
to the preparation for and management of discrete events such
as floods, droughts and fires - events that have the potential
to overwhelm the capacity of an affected community, province,
country or region, and cause severe hardship and loss. While this
has indeed been the dominant approach to disaster reduction both
internationally as well as in South Africa, it is increasingly
viewed as having limited effectiveness in our rapidly changing
world.
During the 1990s, there has been a growing awareness that disaster
losses can be more effectively reduced and, in fact, averted through
improved development planning and action. By taking full account
- in policy and practice - of known hazards, the likely risks
facing a community, and the community's capacity to withstand
these hazards - focused development actually reduces the likelihood
of disastrous events.
In this way, hazards are seen as integral aspects of our environment
- as naturally occurring or human-induced processes or events
with the potential to create loss. Exposure to a hazard need not
necessarily mean disaster. It is the level of vulnerability of
those who are exposed to the hazard that increases risk and, thus,
the likelihood of a disastrous occurrence.
A simple example may help to illustrate this: two people are crossing
the ocean - one in an ocean liner, the other in a rowing boat.
The main hazard (deep ocean waters and waves) is the same in both
cases, but the risk is far greater for the person in the rowing
boat (because the rowing boat is more vulnerable to the impact
of the waves). Here, the rower faces greater risk of a boating
disaster than the ocean-liner captain, although the hazard is
the same for both.
Therefore, from a developmental perspective, disasters are not
seen as isolated random acts of nature. Rather, disasters are
increasingly viewed as an expected consequence of poor risk management
over the long-term. They are the outcome of interconnected social
and physical processes that increase risk and vulnerability to
even modest threats.
From this perspective, both risk reduction and disaster management
are clearly multi-disciplinary processes, engaging a wide range
of stakeholders. In the broadest sense, risk reduction is a developmental
imperative for achieving sustainable growth, as well as a strategy
that protects the lives and livelihoods for those most vulnerable.
Similarly, disaster management is a multi-disciplinary field focused
on minimising losses from the vast array of hazards that face
South Africa today. Both risk reduction and disaster management
engage a wide range of players, as diverse as school teachers
in peri-urban areas, civil engineers responsible for community
water supplies, urban planners, climatologists, medical rescue
teams and fire-fighters.
The challenge South Africa faces is how best to advocate for improved
disaster-management and risk-reduction policies and practices
so that these become integral aspects of existing strategies to
achieve sustained development and social equity.
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1.5. Linkages between disasters and development
There is a significant relationship in the way that disasters
and development affect one another. Disasters have special negative
impacts on the non-formal sector where approximate costs of disasters
are often underestimated - mainly because small-scale disasters
go unrecorded and receive no national priority. However, these
disasters adversely affect households and individuals who feel
the consequences most due to loss of income or breadwinner members.
Disasters depress the non-formal economy through the direct costs
of lost equipment, infrastructure, housing, lives and household
utensils. Disasters also result in indirect costs such as loss
of employment and economic losses.
The two possible contradictions referred to in the above sections
may be described as follows:
- Disasters can provide development opportunities
Development programmes must be designed to decrease vulnerability
to disasters and their negative consequences. For example, housing
projects that encourage the use of home-made bricks designed to
withstand high winds or heavy rainfall result in less destruction
during the next tropical storm.
- Development can reduce vulnerability
Disasters do highlight high-risk areas where action must be taken
before another disaster strikes. The realisation of vulnerability
after the occurrence of a disaster can motivate policy-makers
and the public to participate in risk-reduction activities.
For example, the Pietermaritzburg flood disaster of 25 December
1995 highlighted a need for speedy development in Edendale, and
it prompted the government to build formal houses in Edendale.
- Development can increase vulnerability
Development can increase the vulnerability of communities, e.g.,
by creating employment opportunities, you attract scores of people
who flock to urban areas to look for jobs and settle on dangerous
locations.
- Disasters set back development
Disasters set back years and years of investment in development.
The 1995-96 floods destroyed transport and utility systems.
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1.6. Underlying causes of disasters
These causes are embedded in social, economic, and environmental
conditions that set or pose certain kinds of risks or hazards
to development programmes and human beings. Disasters are now
increasingly being seen as the outcome of cumulative risk processes
rooted in patterns of behaviour like poor land-use practices,
ill-conceived development projects, lack of rules and guidelines,
etc. Given that disasters involve complex processes, and some
are beyond human control, there is a need to strengthen traditional
or existing methods but, more importantly, also to explore new,
innovative ways of dealing with disasters.
Most of South Africa lies within a region of Southern Africa that
has a semi-arid to arid climate. This region is subject to climatic
extremes, including droughts, floods and other meteorological
(weather) phenomena. There are indications that South Africa's
climate is becoming increasingly variable. As in many other areas
in Africa, our vulnerability to these climatic extremes has increased
over the years as a result of poverty, distorted settlement patterns
due to apartheid policies and the consequent heavier exploitation
of natural resources.
In South Africa, threats such as droughts, floods and a growing
risk of HIV and malaria are a constant drain on our country's
human, economic and natural resources. For instance, an El-Nino
event (a "creeping emergency") could reduce the gross value of
our agricultural production by 16%, while agriculture's contribution
to the gross domestic product would decrease by 11,7%. For farm
workers and households dependent on farm labour for their livelihoods,
the implications of this are immense. During the 1992 El Nino
event, for example, some 50 000 jobs were lost in the agricultural
sector alone.
But drought as a hazard is no stranger to Southern Africa, nor
is the threat of veld fires, flash floods or other disasters.
These are threats that occur again and again, and must be fully
taken into account in development policy and practice in order
to safeguard our investment in South Africa's human, economic
and natural resources.
Some key points to remember
- Disasters are increasingly viewed as an expected consequence of
poor risk management rather than isolated, random acts of nature.
- Disasters are also an outcome of interconnected social and physical
processes that increase risk and vulnerability to even modest
threats.
- It is more cost-effective to prevent and mitigate against disasters.
- Disaster management should be an integral component of development
planning as disasters and development are often interrelated.
Points of debate and key questions
- What are some of the underlying causes of disasters in your field/area?
- What disasters have affected people in your area during the past
10 years?
- Can you afford to only respond to a disaster after the event?
- What actions can people take to reduce their risk and vulnerability?
Green Paper on Disater Management Index | Top of page
General | 1. Introduction | 2. Key principles for a Disaster Management policy | 3. Different approaches to Disaster Management | 4. Current situation in managing diasaters | 5. Ensuring that a system for Disaster Management is in place | 6. Intergovernmental and civil society co-operation and co-ordination | 7. Glossary | Contents
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