The 25^th Resilience Seminar

Title:	Combating drought in South Africa, and southern Africa
Date & time:	Dec. 5th, 16:00-17:15
Place:	RIHN Lecture Hall ( access)
Speaker:	Mitsuru Tsubo
affiliation:	Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University

Abstract:

In Africa drought is the most devastating natural event, and severe drought causes people to be starved to death. The Sahel drought disaster in 1974-1975 resulted in a total of 325,000 casualties. In 1984 the worst drought event occurred in Ethiopia and Sudan; approximately 450,000 people were died. In 1992 southern African countries dealt with the most severe drought disaster of the century in the region.

Zimbabwean faced food shortage due to insufficient rainfall during the crop season. This crisis was escalated by the misconduct of the government; their policy failed and they were blamed for the damage. The lesson learned from the crisis is that pre- and post-disaster management for drought is critical for prevention and mitigation of the disaster.

South Africa is one of the countries which are at the cutting edge of drought management, as the National Disaster Management Centre has been formed to promote an integrated, coordinated system of disaster management by national, provincial and municipal governments. Their drought management has been strengthened in connection with the Weather Service which releases seasonal rainfall outlooks, but an operational system to alleviate drought disasters is not yet formulated. A drought early warning system thus needs to be developed for the country and then the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.