By Davison Kaiyo
Disasters related to climate change are increasing across the African
region, exacerbated by lack of timely, accurate information
uncoordinated planning and responses to climate change, and other
factors that increase the vulnerability of people, property, and
infrastructure.
Climate change is a reality that we are faced with today. This year
the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region is faced with
devastating drought, while it is yet to recover from the effects of
Cyclone Idai which ravaged parts of the region last year.
Another reality that nations are facing today is regional integration
– the coming together of nations for increased cooperation and this
include the area of climate change and disaster mitigation strategies.
SADC is a manifestation of regional integration.
Regional co‐operation and integration in SADC region owes its origin
to historical, economic, political, social and cultural factors that
have created strong bonds of solidarity and unity among the people of
Southern Africa and this has to further extend to the issues to do
with climate change and related meteorological issues to enable member
states to work together in mitigating the effects of climate change.
One of the most pressing problems facing all SADC
countries in the coming years will be climate change.
In view of the increasing adverse impacts of severe weather and
unpredictable climate conditions that are associated with a menace
known as climate change, the region is currently faced with high
demand for timely and quality information, services and products that
will assist in coming up with strategies to mitigate against the
effects of climate change, it is time for SADC to consider climate
change and collaboration to mitigate against its effects as an
integral part of regional integration. Climate change adaptation is
therefore an imperative sector that SADC needs to fully mainstream and
give the attention it deserves.
The region is increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters such as
droughts and cyclones and national economies are becoming more
sensitive to climate change, as severe weather and extreme climatic
events such as floods and droughts among others are occurring with
greater frequency and intensity. The losses of life, the number of
people affected, and the economic losses associated with natural
disasters are more severe for the developing countries, which includes
most countries in the SADC Region. Climate Change has affected a
number of sectors in the SADC region, some of the sectors affected
include agriculture, water and energy. Most SADC
countries are currently faced with a looming drought and are in need food aid.
The social and economic value of weather and climate information is
derived from the influence of this information on decisions made by
users in the sectors sensitive to weather and climate conditions, with
the value tending to increase with the quality, accuracy, timeliness,
location specificity and user‐friendliness of the information cannot
be over emphasised.
The SADC Climate Services Centre (CSC) therefore plays a critical role
in informing all climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture,
health, early warning conflict and Disaster risk management, water and
energy, livestock and food security. These sectors rely on the CSC for
their planning purposes and formulation of the mitigation measures.
The CSC does this by issuing periodical advisory notes and or when an
extreme event is detected to occur within the SADC region.
The principal goal of the SADC CSC is to contribute to the reduction
of negative impacts of adverse weather and climate conditions such as
drought, floods and other extreme events on sustainable socio‐economic
development, and to the rational use, conservation and protection of
national resources in the SADC sub‐region through providing
meteorological services to member states. This demands that the centre
be fully capacitated to provide such information to the end user in
member states seeing that the majority of member states in the SADC
lack infrastructural capacity and have limited numbers of
professional meteorologists and most of those available are doing
administrative work, leaving a big gap in personnel
requirements for operations and research.
Meteorological services and research is very important for improving
and enhancing the understanding of the behaviour and origins of
weather and climate systems in the sub‐region. There is therefore
need to capacitate the local meteorological institutions to be able to
feed into the SADC Climate Services Centre to be able to provide
accurate, up to date and timely information to enable member states
to be able to prepare in case of looming disasters.
The importance of the SADC CSC is reflected in the Early Warning
Advisory Bulletin for the 2019/20 Southern Africa Regional Rainfall
Season published in October 2019. It advised that although the bulk of
SADC is likely to receive normal to above-normal rainfall during the
upcoming 2019/20, normal to below-normal rainfall forecast is also
expected especially in the second half of the season in areas such as
the coastal strip of Angola, Namibia and South Africa; and Eswatini,
southern Madagascar, Mozambique, South African, northern Tanzania and
all of Zimbabwe. Measures to mitigate the effect should be put in
place. Resources must therefore be channel to this critical
institution to make sure it has the latest technology, highly trained
human resources and modern infrastructure to fully carry out its
mandate for the benefits of all the citizens of the SADC region.
On the global perspective the application of meteorological services
has made a significant contribution to the improvement of the
economies of countries and to safety of life and property of the
public. Statistics from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters for the period from 1980 to 2007 reveals that over 90 per
cent of all disasters were related to natural hazards, 71 per cent of
the casualties and 78 per cent of the economic losses were caused by
weather‐, climate‐ or water‐related hazards such as tropical cyclones
and storm surges, droughts, floods or disease epidemics and insect
infestations
Climate change and its effect hit the marginalised groups the hardest.
They have brunt the burden of drought induced hunger, walking long
distances to look for water, destroyed infrastructure and as a region
it is also crucial to create safety nets for such groups of our
society.
SADC needs to act on some of their strategies such as the recently
launched Intra African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Global Climate
Change Alliance Plus (GCCA+) programme which aims to strengthen the
capacity of SADC Member States to undertake climate change adaptation
and mitigation interventions which reduce climate change related
impacts which in turn will contribute to the sustainable
socio‐economic development of the region. However in coming up with
these measures in addressing climate change at regional level it will
also be necessary for SADC member states to ensure that mechanisms are
put in place at national level, where appropriate, to address these
issues. Climate change and its mitigation and regional integration
can therefore not be separated. This is one area that requires close
cooperation for mutual benefiting by the member states.
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