The Disaster Management Institute of Southern Africa will hold its annual conference on Disaster Risk Management under the Theme: “Taking up the Challenge: Readiness for Risk Reduction and Response” which seeks to highlight the need to be prepared for both risk reduction and response.
The importance of bringing issues of disaster management and understanding of risk to the rural areas is acknowledged as communities are sometimes more vulnerable to the occurrence of disasters than in the urban areas; where capacity and resources are often available to deal with the preparedness for and the response to disasters.
The Head of the National Disaster Management Centre, Mr Ken Terry, will deliver a keynote address at the conference. “Communities must be able to understand the risks they face. Identifying natural hazards, and understanding their potential impact on people and assets is a fundamental element of guiding resilient development. Disaster risk assessment is useful as it examines the likelihood and outcomes of expected disaster events. A reliable disaster risk assessment for a specific threat should assist decision makers in answering some of the following questions:
- How frequent can one expect an incident or a disaster to happen?
- Which areas, communities or households are most at risk?
- What are the likely impacts?
- What capabilities or resources exist to manage the risk?
- Is the risk undermining development progress in the areas, communities and households it affects?”
The conference of the Institute is the biggest annual disaster reduction conference in Africa and routinely attracts approximately 300 delegates. The Institute is recognised as the mouthpiece of the Disaster Management profession in Southern Africa and is recognised by the United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR).
This year’s conference is supported by the Mopani District Municipality, Limpopo Provincial Government, the South African Weather Service and the National Disaster Management Centre - NDMC of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).
The conference will be held as follows:
Date:11 – 14 September 2012
Venue: Karibu Lodge (Outside Tzaneen) – Limpopo Province
Time: 10h00
Media is invited.
Enquiries:
Erika Swart
Cell: 082 774 5508
Karin Muller
Cell: 083 744 5824
