Disasters identified as world’s ‘great equaliser’
Port Alfred hosts global conference on handling emergencies
“People will perish because of lack of knowledge.” Keynote speaker at this week’s international conference on disaster management Professor Godwell Nhamo took no prisoners in his opening address.
The International Emergency Management Society’s annual conference for 2023 is being held at Stenden SA in Port Alfred and Rhodes University in Makhanda from September 11-15. Researchers and practitioners from 30 countries are presenting papers in person or virtually to peers and students around the world.
Nhamo is a chief researcher and Exxaro chair in business and climate change hosted by the Institute for Corporate Citizenship at Unisa. The C3-rated NRF researcher is a distinguished old Rhodian award recipient.
His comment came after asking the audience of 60-odd in the Stenden auditorium to name one of the 17 sustainable development goals for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In a gripping presentation, Nhamo spoke of the increasing risk of slow onset and rapid climate events.
“When it comes to disasters, there is no longer a north/south divide,” he said. “Disasters have equalised us now. “No one is safe until everyone on the continent and the world is safe.”
Nhamo said there were inseparable linkages between nations and continents with in attaining the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
“Now this is a disaster,” Nhamo quipped. “We are half way through and more than half the people in this room are not aware ware what the 17 sustainable development goals are. People will perish because of lack of knowledge.”
Nhamo said it was crucial for communities to build disaster resistance.
“This needs high-level political and management buy-ins, policy frameworks, funding, institutional capacity and scaling up quick and big wins programmes and projects on the ground,” he said.
Nhamo warned that disaster-induced human displacement and migration in Southern Africa had become a real security challenge.
“This is almost at crisis level,” he said. “We are not imagining things: the disasters will come they will increase, that is a given. What we need to do is be prepared for these disasters.”
Among the huge span of topics covered in this week’s conference are papers on how to engage communities to be prepared for weather related disasters, including flooding. Talk of the Town will report further.
Founded in Washington, US in 1993, TIEMS is a global forum for education, training and certification in emergency and disaster management. Its international expert network comprises users, planners, researchers, industry, managers, response personnel, practitioners, social scientists, and other interested parties.
The conference is being hosted by the TIEMS SA chapter, Rhodes University and Stenden SA, in collaboration with the University of Zilina, Slovakia and the Institute for Disaster Management of the National University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary.