The conference was amongst others addressed by Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Andries Nel.
He said in August this year we commemorated the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in the United States in 2005. On this occasion President Barack Obama said: "And we came to realise that what started out as a natural disaster became a manmade disaster - a failure of government to look out for its own citizens. And the storm laid bare a deeper tragedy that had been brewing for decades because we came to understand that New Orleans, like so many cities and communities across the country, had for too long been plagued by structural inequalities that left too many people, especially poor people, especially people of color, without good jobs or affordable health care or decent housing.
Too many kids grew up surrounded by violent crime, cycling through substandard schools where few had a shot to break out of poverty. And so like a body weakened already, undernourished already, when the storm hit, there was no resources to fall back on."
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030
The theme for the conference is: “The 2030 Resilience, Sustainability and Adaptation Mandate: A new action agenda for Disaster Risk Reduction.”
The objective of the conference is to discuss the implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Sendai, Japan in March 2015.
The deputy minister further said, disasters continue to have devastating consequences, especially for the most vulnerable and poor communities. Over 700 thousand people have lost their lives, over 1.4 million have been injured and approximately 23 million have been left homeless as a result of disasters. More than 1.5 billion people have been affected by disasters in various ways, with women, children and people in vulnerable situations disproportionately affected (UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2015).
Disasters are exacerbated by climate change and continued to increase in frequency and intensity, thereby significantly impeding progress towards sustainable development.
Implementation of the Framework must be guided by the following principles:
- Each state has a responsibility to prevent and reduce disaster risk, including through international, regional, sub-regional, trans-boundary and bilateral cooperation
- This responsibility must be shared by central governments and relevant national authorities, sectors and stakeholders appropriate to their national circumstances and systems of governance
- The enabling, guiding and coordinating role of national and federal governments is essential. However, local authorities and local communities must also be empowered with resources and decision making power, to reduce disaster risk;
Addressing underlying disaster risk factors through disaster risk-informed public and private investments is more cost-effective than primary reliance on post-disaster response and recovery, and contributes to sustainable development.
Role of NDMC in implementation of Sendai Framework
In South Africa the National Disaster Management Centre, established in terms of the Disaster Management Act, 2002, is mandated:
“To promote an integrated and coordinated system of disaster management, with special emphasis on prevention and mitigation, by national, provincial and municipal organs of state, statutory functionaries, other role-players involved in disaster management and communities."
The National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) will play a leading role in implementing the Sendai Framework by:
- Supporting the use of traditional and indigenous knowledge systems and practices to complement scientific knowledge in disaster risk reduction
- Promoting and improving dialogue and cooperation among scientific and technological communities, other relevant stakeholders and policymakers to ensure a science-policy interface for effective decision-making in disaster risk management
- Ensuring the implementation of risk reduction strategies and plans
For further information contact:
Mpho Lekgoro:
Cell: 071 607 3081
E-mail: mphol@cogta.gov.za
