Land tenure insecurity, vulnerability to climate-induced disaster and opportunities for redress in southern Africa

Land tenure is an important variable impacting on vulnerability to climate-related disaster. Land tenure insecurity is widespread in southern Africa and manifests itself in a number of ways that accentuate vulnerability to climate change impacts. Insecure tenure is seen to heighten vulnerability against growing demand for land for residential purposes and working space in urban areas while in the rural areas insecure tenure militates against diversified livelihoods and hinders investment in appropriate technologies and uptake of sound environmental management practices. Using the focused synthesis method, this article (1) maps the intersections between land tenure insecurity and vulnerability to climate-induced disaster in southern Africa; and (2) identifies the opportunities tenure reforms hold for vulnerability reduction in a region predicted to suffer widespread impacts from climate change. The paper contends that land tenure is a critical component of the milieu of factors – economic, social, cultural, institutional, political and even psychological – that are known to shape vulnerability and determine the environment that people live in. The study finds that land tenure reforms can help to reduce vulnerability and enhance community resilience to climate change. In this regard, the article outlines how tenure reforms can help build diverse household livelihoods, improve environmental management, particularly in the rural areas, and encourage investment in robust housing and safe neighbourhoods among the urban poor – all of which are integral to the region’s response to climate change

Towards improved public awareness for climate related disaster risk reduction in South Africa: a participatory development communication perspective

Southern Africa has frequently been struck by damaging climate hazards which increasingly continue to threaten sustainable development efforts. Ominously, climate models predict that the incidence of major ‘wet’ events, such as floods and cyclones will increase in frequency against the background of a changing climate. Unfortunately, local mechanisms for communicating and raising public awareness of the consequent risks and appropriate risk reduction options remain weak. At the core of policy responses to the threat posed by climate related hazards, the South African government has adopted a disaster risk reduction approach to disaster management. This article details how, among many other measures to limit the adverse impacts of natural hazards, South Africa’s National Disaster Management Framework calls for the implementation of effective public awareness activities to increase the knowledge among communities of the risks they face and what risk-minimising actions they can take. Emphasis is laid on the importance of information provision and knowledge building among at-risk communities. Citing established theories and strategies, the author proposes a participatory development communication approach through Development Support Communication strategies for the provision of disaster risk reduction public awareness activities by government and other disaster risk reduction role-players in South Africa. By way of a review of completed studies and literature, the article provides guidance on the planning and execution of successful public communication campaigns and also discusses the constraints of communication campaigns as an intervention for comprehensive disaster risk reduction.https://doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v2i2.1

'The Longest Lean Season': How urgent action is needed to counter the devastating humanitarian impacts of the El Niño drought in Southern Africa

Although the El Niño weather event has ended, the humanitarian needs resulting from the drought in Southern Africa remain huge, and are still deepening. With the next harvests not due until March/April 2017, governments, donors and humanitarian actors must urgently provide food and other assistance to support people through this long, hard lean season. Farmers desperately need seeds and fertilizers if they are to take advantage of predicted rains and produce better harvests next year; a critical shortage in Malawi could lead to a cereal shortfall of nearly one million tons. In addition, all actors must be ready to respond immediately to the damaging impacts of heavy rains forecast across the region

Developing Sustainable Capacity for Disaster Risk Reduction in Southern Africa

Southern Africa suffers from an acute lack in skilled capacities for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The region, with its unique disaster risk profile, is mostly bound by its inability to effect change and transformation for sustainable development and resilience building. Reasons for these limitations are largely due to the lack of capacities in disaster risk reduction with the public, semiprivate, as well as private sectors. However, since the 1990s, some significant work in disaster risk governance in the region has led to some of the most forward thinking policies and acts in the world. Therefore, the disaster risk reduction communities in the various Southern African states have not been idle. The major constraint now faced is the translation of these policies and plans into action, and this is where the need for more capacities becomes strikingly obvious. Research and academic institutions in the region have outlived all of the regimes and regime changes. These institutions are ideally suited to address the policy/practice gap that exists within the disaster risk reduction domain. In this chapter, we argue for a focus shift in developing sustainable capacities for disaster risk reduction in Southern Africa by first acknowledging and second harnessing the existing skills base in the region. We believe that contemporary capacity development for disaster risk reduction is predominantly ad hoc, short term, project focused, and microsized, and should be changed from within the region, by building on existing institutions and networks that are driven by Southern African institutions