SADC stepping up regional disaster preparedness ahead of El Niño

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is stepping up regional disaster preparedness ahead of emerging humanitarian threats.

At a workshop in Johannesburg today, SADC Secretariat representative Dr Manuel Lutango says countries must strengthen coordination and work together to prepare for the potential impacts of El Niño.

“We are all aware that there is an El Niño coming around that our region, most hazards are related to water.

It’s either excess water or drought.

So, at this stage, we are expecting both scenarios in different parts of the region.

This is why we need to put efforts together to be able to address this hazard,” says Lutango.

Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, Pablo Torrealba, outlined the EU’s contribution to the region.

“Ourselves, the diplomatic lot, are preparing ourselves through our funding, but we are supporting the different partners who are there supporting the member states and the different institutions to be better prepared.

So, we’ve been, in the past year, supporting early warning systems so that messages can be triggered on time.

Then we’ve been supporting all the different protocols that allow these early warning systems to generate actions, to save lives, and to save livelihoods.

So, our role here is to accompany and to support, hopefully, all the national priorities,” says Torrealba.

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