Address by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Zweli Mkhize, at the celebration of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDR), Dawid Kruiper Local Municipality, Upington, Northern Cape 16 November 2018 Premier of the Northern Cape, Ms Sylvia Lucas MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Mr Bentley Vass, Executive Mayors, Mayors and Councillors Traditional Leaders The Head of the National Disaster Management Centre, Dr Mmaphaka Tau and all senior officials present, Members of academia and all stakeholders present, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning to you all! We are gathered here today to mark and celebrate the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) 2018. This is an important day as it celebrates how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters. The theme for the IDDRR 2018 is Reducing Disaster Economic Losses with a focus on investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience. The celebration of the IDDRR is held annually as per Resolution 64/2000 of the United Nations General Assembly. Let me convey our appreciation to the Northern Cape Provincial government for partnering with us in hosting this important event. 1 Disasters continue to wreak havoc throughout the world. In March this year, such as Tropical Storm “Eliakim” in Madagascar and a major earthquake in Indonesia, which was followed by a localised Tsunami which damaged critical infrastructure and sadly led to the deaths of over 2000 people. The Southern African region is already experiencing changes in climate such as higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and varying frequencies of natural hazard events. Natural hazards and climate change extremes pose a significant development challenge to the region. A single disaster event has the potential to erode many years of economic development gains by damaging critical infrastructure and by diverting resources away from development spending, such as health and education services, toward disaster response and reconstruction efforts. Disaster risk reduction (DRR), resilience building and promoting sustainable development are key to achieving a number of goals. DRR improves the management of human settlements and promotes sustainable land use land-use planning and management. It promotes the integrated provision of environmental infrastructure such as water, sanitation, drainage and solid waste management. It promotes sustainable energy and transport systems in human settlements. It promotes sustainable construction industry activities and promotes human resource development and capacity-building. That is why disaster risk reduction is important for our country and also why we are gathered here today! South Africa, like other countries in the region, is vulnerable to a number of natural hazards. Drought has become a normal feature of the South African climate. Drought occurrence, which is compounded by climate change, occurs with varying intensity in several parts of the country with severe, pervasive and devastating social, environmental, and economic impacts. This year’s IDDRR anniversary is hosted at a time when most parts of our country are recovering from one of the worst droughts that South Africa has ever witnessed, which affected the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape provinces immensely. Provincial states of disaster were declared in terms of the Disaster Management Act, 2002. The drought affected agricultural production negatively and was driven by declining meteorological conditions, which were recorded to be the lowest since 1926. 2 Our host, the Northern Cape, has been exposed to severe drought conditions that reached disaster proportions. About 24 million hectares of land was affected, with a carrying capacity of about seven hundred thousand large stock units. The drought conditions in this province significantly affected three of the five district municipalities namely John Taolo Gaetsewe, Frances Baard and parts of Namakwa. Government through the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) provided drought relief to the affected areas in the form of disaster grant funding. The drought situation has improved in many provinces due to the winter and early summer rainfalls and due to government interventions. We are confident that these interventions brought relief and contribute to building resilience in the affected sectors and communities. Given the improvements, in June this year I announced that as the Minister responsible for disaster management I had decided not renew the national state of disaster when it lapsed due to the progress made since the declaration earlier this year. However, the existing classification of a national disaster remains in force and the national government remains responsible for the coordination of the drought interventions listed above under the auspices of the Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) on drought and water scarcity. In fact, we are concerned about the continued prevalence of drought in some parts of the three Cape provinces (Northern, Eastern and Western Cape). Drought in the Northern Cape has since been worsened by an exponential increase in invader plant populations, which outcompetes the population and native vegetation for water. The high proportions of Prosopis invader plant species with its deep root systems and high water consumption deplete the groundwater table with a potential to cause land degradation and ultimately, desertification. An exponential increase in invader plant densities necessitates coordinated and multi-sectoral interventions. 3 The National Treasury allocated a total of R3.2 billion to deal with the effects of drought and water scarcity and R1.6 billion to deal with the effects of storms and fires. The funding will also strengthen mitigation measures in the face of the current weather outlook which points to the possible occurrence of an El Nino phenomenon during the 2018/19 summer season through to the winter rainfall season. These allocations will assist affected communities in KZN, the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape with drought relief. The damage caused during the drought exceeded their capacity to deal with damages using their own resources. The Minister of Finance had indicated in the budget speech in February this year that he had set aside a provisional allocation of R6 billion in 2018/19 for several purposes, including drought relief and to augment public infrastructure investment. The disbursement of this allocation for drought will be led by the Inter-Ministerial Task Team on Drought and Water Scarcity chaired by COGTA, and will be available from January 2019. This Post-Disaster Recovery Funding has been allocated through the Medium Term Expenditure Framework i.e. 2018/19 which will be accessed within in-year and 2019/2020 and 2020/21 respectively. The R1.62 billion will be used for municipal infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and human settlements in KZN and the Western Cape. During these conditions of drought, veldfires pose a major hazard to human lives, livelihoods and ecosystem, property and fire-sensitive natural resources in our country and resource poor communities remain amongst the most vulnerable. Similar to drought, veldfires are a natural and inescapable feature of the ecological landscape of South Africa. Research has revealed that unplanned urbanisation, the growing rural-urban interface, globally referred to as the Wildland Urban Interface are some of the factors magnifying veldfire risks. They expose more people to fires including highly vulnerable communities in informal settlements. 4 In the past few weeks, the Garden Route District Municipalities were ravaged by devastating veldfires of unprecedented magnitude and ten people tragically lost their lives as a result of this fire, eight family members near Knysna on the Garden Route, one Working on Fire Pilot and one Working on Fire firefighter following a vehicle accident. We extend our deepest condolences again to the affected families. Nothing can be more painful than losing a loved one. The Western Cape veldfires affected a total of 96 000 hectares around George and 6 000 hectares in the Eastern Cape, in the Tsitsikama area. Mopping up operations are still underway. Although the total cost of damages is still undetermined at this stage as assessments are currently underway, significant damage has been recorded in the Forestry and Conservation sector. I wish to applaud the heroic efforts of our firefighters, emergency medical services personnel, police officials, SANDF personnel and all who braved difficult and dangerous conditions to mitigate the effects of these disastrous veldfires. The number of resources used to fight the Southern Cape fire included the following: • About 350 Firefighters from district municipalities, local municipalities, George Airport, Forestry Companies and SANPARKS were involved in the firefighting. • Thirty-nine vehicles • Six spotters from the Working on Fire programme • Five helicopters from Working on Fire and the South African Airforce and • Three bombers from the Working on Fire programme. Let me also take this opportunity to pay homage to the three brave firefighters who lost their lives while battling the Bank of Lisbon fires in Central Johannesburg during August 2018. They will always be remembered as heroes who risked their lives to save their fellow beings. Our emergency personnel go towards danger while others run away, and we salute all of them nationwide.