26 Mar 2015

The Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Phillip Makgalemele says disasters are major challenges facing the globe.

Briefing the media about his recent visit to Sendai in Japan where he attended the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Mr Makgalemele explained that in Sendani during the Tsunami disaster, 900 lives were lost with 140 people still unaccounted for.

He said the Tsunami disaster of 2011, Japan lost a total of 20 000 people and therefore the Sendai conference was a way of appreciating how the Japanese responded to the disaster. He explained that the whole idea of the conference was to share experiences with different countries, experts in terms of disasters that hit their respective countries.

Mr Makgalemele said there were a number of issues emerging such as the need for nations to have a deeper understanding for disaster risk; that all have to comprehend that disaster is a development issue and risk and that strategies have to be put in place to ensure that it is properly managed and proactive strategies are put in place.

Furthermore, he said the other emerging issue relating to strengthening disaster risk was the issue of governance, as well as investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience. At the same conference, Mr Makgamele made a presentation on how Botswana is governing disaster risk and overcoming challenges.

He told the conference that National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) was the agency responsible for coordinating DRR in Botswana and its vision was to enhance disaster resilience for all, adding that was aligned to the national vision 2016 pillar of a safe and secure nation, and a compassionate, just and caring nation.

According to Mr Makgalemele, he presented to the conference that the vision was also supported by the constitution of Botswana which guarantees equality for all regardless of gender, colour, creed, ethnicity or religion.

He further told the conference that Botswana has over the years managed to adopt a robust system to manage drought in the country, and to enhance the resilience of locals, interventions are targeted to the vulnerable groups such as feeding of the under-fives, pregnant women and subsidised feeds to livestock.

Regarding the floods in Botswana, he told the conference that the country experiences regular flash floods which affect the vulnerable poor, adding the floods destroys people’s houses and stripping them of their human dignity.

For his part, Director of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), Mr Moagi Baleseng said the objective of the conference were to review the progress made by implementing Hyogo Framework for Action, that started in 2005 until 2015. 

He said the United Nations wanted to review the frame work that nations have been implementing that also guided how disaster reduction was devised.

He said as a country their objective was to go and learn from other countries how they were implementing disaster risk reduction so that they could also improve on their strategy.

The conference was held from 14 to 18 Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan and at the end countries signed a Sendai declaration. ENDS