The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Minister’s responsible Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Management will join their Africa counterpart on the 25th November 2016 for the 5th High Level meeting for Disaster Risk Reduction. The meeting will be held at the Balaclava, by the Government of Mauritius. The meeting aims at agreeing and adopting an Africa Union Draft Declaration in readiness for the global DRR platform to be held in Mexico in the year 2017. SADC has since endorsed the conference as the hosting Regional Economic Community (REC) alongside the AUC, UNISDR and the Mauritius Government.
On the sidelines of this meeting, the SADC Senior Government Officials met on the 21st November 2016 to formulate modalities and insight for the proposed SADC Minister’s meeting which will consider the modalities for the establishment of a Regional Disaster Preparedness and Response Strategy and Fund to address both humanitarian assistance and infrastructure reconstruction and recovery needs for the region.
The SADC region is concerned by the slow and inadequate responses to disasters and emergencies and inappropriate or inadequate legal frameworks guiding the movement of relief supplies across borders.
The deliberations at the technical, Senior Official and Ministerial meetings are intended to consider and approve the regional disaster preparedness and response strategy and recommend for the consideration and approval of the disaster preparedness and responses fund to SADC Ministers of Finance and Investment.
The main outcome of the planned DRR Ministerial meeting will be to review and approve a Disaster Preparedness and Response Strategy as well as a Disaster Response Fund which will also be presented to Ministers of Finance and Investment at their meeting in March 2017.
