Guest Column: Chris Nshimbi
Cyclone Idai, which has recently devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, was one of the worst natural disasters to hit the southern African region. It killed at least 1,000 people and caused damage estimated at $ 2 billion.
The response of Sadc member states, civil society, the private sector and individuals in the region points to the need for a collective and regional approach to dealing with natural disasters - rather than individual countries working alone.
Idai also showed, once again, how unprepared Sadc was to respond to major natural disasters. He does not seem to have learned much from previous ones.
In 2015, floods and torrential rains associated with tropical storm Chedza and cyclone Bansai left about 260 dead and 360,000 homeless in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
About a year earlier, flash floods killed, displaced and left thousands homeless in Zimbabwe. However, the storm that remains most vivid in the minds of many people is the one that hit Mozambique 19 years ago in 2000, killing 700 people and leaving two million homeless.
Disasters of this type know no boundaries. That is why they need to think beyond the limited view that individual governments should respond only to crises.
Answers to Idai
The first regional response to Idai came from the South African National Defense Forces and the South African humanitarian aid NGO, Gift of the Givers. These responses followed a request from the Mozambican government.
The United Nations responded with aid operations in the affected countries a few days later. Other Sadc countries, NGOs, the private sector and ordinary citizens also donated to relief efforts.
For his part, however, Sadc's voice was conspicuously absent for at least a week after the devastation. Ordinarily, he should have led relief operations.
It was disconcerting to see UN Secretary-General António Guterres ask for help and draw up a plan to respond to the disaster at a meeting of the security council while Sadc remained missing in action.
Sadc has a dedicated disaster risk reduction unit. It coordinates regional preparedness and responses to transboundary disasters and hazards. But, as South Africa's Foreign Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said, the regional body was completely unprepared for the disaster.
Grouping resources
Of Sadc's 16 member states, only Angola, Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa contributed to relief efforts.
This reflects the prevailing preference for a bilateral approach to regional challenges within Sadc.
At the heart of this are narrow nationalist interests and a concern for sovereignty. The member states are not willing to give up control over the policies to be administered by the regional body for the collective good.
But natural disasters such as Idai do not respect national boundaries. Its very regional scope requires solutions that integrate domestic actions into a regional governance structure to address them effectively.
When Sadc finally responded, she pledged $ 500,000 for disaster relief efforts that cost more than $ 2 billion in infrastructure damage alone.
Rather than acting individually, Sadc countries need to work together to pool resources and mobilize efforts and resources for disaster relief to be more effective. This could be done through Sadc's secretariat.
Funds for immediate humanitarian assistance and infrastructure reconstruction should be carried out in pre-existing and dedicated facilities such as a regional disaster risk fund.
This would provide Southern Africa with risk funding for climate and other disasters. Funds that are often donated by Sadc member states, the private sector, NGOs and ordinary citizens for relief efforts can also be collected and placed in the permanent regional mechanism.
But there are challenges.
The biggest challenge for establishing a subregional disaster fund is probably outside Sadc and even Africa. The idea may not please some governments. For example, an attempt to create an Asian Monetary Fund after the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98 failed because the US strongly opposed it, and China did not support it either.
But Sadc could work with global financial institutions to overcome this challenge. The World Bank, for example, already runs disaster risk programs. Sadc could approach you for support and partnership to make the installation a reality.
Cushion against damage
Cyclone Idai has once again shown that natural disasters are capable of wreaking havoc in southern Africa. It has also been shown that the affected countries are very poor to respond to the devastation of their infrastructure and the accompanying humanitarian disaster.
It is therefore necessary for countries in the region to work together to develop robust contingency plans, including a permanent regional disaster fund, to help mitigate the effects of natural disasters.
Chris Changwe Nshimbi is director and researcher at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
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