South Africa: Disaster Reduction Strat to Improve Responses

 

The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), to be unveiled in Mpumalanga at the weekend, is to help local government respond better to environmental disasters.

Mpumalanga is recovering from the most devastating wildfires it has experienced, since 2003.

The fires have killed 17 people since the end of July. An estimated 42 000 hectares of plantations and 15 000 hectares of grazing land were destroyed in July and August, while another 6 000 hectares of land were burnt last week.

The last time the province was ravaged by fires was in 2003, when close to 40 000 hectares of land was destroyed in the province, resulting in the area being declared a disaster area.

The ISDR to be launched on Saturday, is spearheaded by the Mpumalanga Department of Local Government and Housing in Delmas.

The purpose of the campaign is to increase awareness and the importance of disaster risk reduction.

This will also enable communities to become resilient to natural and related technological and environmental disasters, reduce human, economic and social losses.

This year's theme is "Disaster Management begins at School" which highlights the need to keep children safe and involve them directly on disaster prevention and preparedness.

More than 20 schools in and around Delmas will participate in this celebrations.

The campaign will seek to address the following:

• Increasing public awareness

• Obtaining commitment from public authorities

• Stimulating interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral partnership and expanding risk reduction network at all levels and

• improving the scientific knowledge of the cause of disasters.
• The event will have educational programmes, disaster prevention aspects, road safety measures and demonstrations on fire and
  
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• Different stakeholders involved in disaster management will educate the students on different aspects of disaster management.

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DisasterAwareness