South Africa is increasingly grappling with the severe impact of climate change, which manifests in unpredictable extreme weather conditions, including increased heavy rainfall.
The Eastern Cape has long been identified as one of the provinces where the impact of climate change will likely be most severe because of its unique geographical position and the complex interplay of atmospheric systems which make it susceptible to unpredictable and extreme weather patterns.
The province is generally characterised by high levels of poverty and unemployment, which limit communities’ adaptive capacity; it has a legacy of unplanned urbanisation and informal settlements, often built on floodplains and/or other hazardous locations; and a significant portion of the population relies on subsistence and rain-fed agriculture, making them extremely vulnerable to erratic rainfall, drought and floods.
The recent floods in the OR Tambo district have caused a significant humanitarian crisis, displacing families and claiming many lives.
While some provinces, such as KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, have demonstrably begun to bolster their disaster management capacity in the face of escalating extreme weather, the Eastern Cape appears to be lagging severely behind, as is tragically becoming clear in its response to the devastating floods in the OR Tambo district.
The Disaster Management Act (DMA) No 57 of 2002 lies at the heart of SA’s disaster management framework.
Hailed as revolutionary at the time of its promulgation, the legislation marked a shift from a reactive approach to disaster management to a more proactive, risk-reduction-orientated strategy.
The Act mandates a multi-sphere government approach to disaster management, placing responsibilities on the national, provincial, and municipal sphere to co-ordinate activities.
It is common knowledge now, that the intergovernmental framework has failed to translate to the kinds of coordination between the spheres of government that was assumed possible in 2002.
The reality is that while the DMA proposes a proactive approach to disaster management, the opposite has become the standard.
There is a poor integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies at municipal level.
Many rural municipalities, including district municipalities, barely have adequate disaster management skills.
The recent floods are increasingly pointing to weaknesses in municipal planning, which have tended to prioritise technical solutions and infrastructure maintenance, giving insufficient attention to the underlying developmental and structural causes of vulnerability, such as informal settlements and communities located on floodplains.
The auditor-general’s (AG) report highlighted critical weaknesses in the human and operational capacity across government spheres, which result in inadequate coordination of disaster responses.
The AG noted that the processes of damage and need assessment following a disastrous event were slow, there was poor coordination between the different spheres of government (education, health, social development, co-operative government, human settlements, and so on,) which hampered a cohesive and efficient response.
This means crucial resources such as emergency personnel, technical experts and relief supplies are not deployed or managed optimally, as we saw in the OR Tambo district.
One would think that by now the Eastern Cape province would have built its capacity for disaster management considering it has been forewarned about the impact of climate change and has been repeatedly hit by disasters.
The province has a documented backlog in assessing the impact of previous disasters, some dating back as far as 2013; its coordination efforts are weak, and the capacity for disaster management within key departments such as education, health, transport, social development and human settlements is wanting.
While external social service organisations such as Gift of the Givers often step in with critical assistance by providing water tanker trucks, food and hygiene supplies, the reliance highlights a deficit in the province’s logistical capabilities and accessible resources.
The damage to water infrastructure in Mthatha, for example, necessitated external intervention, revealing a critical vulnerability in basic service provision during disasters.
The lack of readily available and suitable land for resettlement also points to a planning and asset management weakness.
Beyond government capacity, the Eastern Cape’s socioeconomic vulnerabilities, such as high levels of poverty, unemployment, and dependence on subsistence agriculture, make the population exceptionally susceptible to climate shocks.
With the eastern parts of the province projected to experience increased precipitation, the risk of more frequent and intense flooding is an immediate and threatening reality.
The cost of poor climate management for families and communities caught in the path of a disaster must never be lost.
Disaster leads to prolonged suffering and hardships, as many families often have insufficient resources to address their immediate needs following a disaster.
More often than not, families and communities hit by a disaster are left even more vulnerable and are likely susceptible to repeat displacement.
The reality in many disaster relief interventions across the country has been that, for many families and communities caught in the path of a disaster, pre-existing socioeconomic challenges simply got amplified as the support received is often inadequate.
The province is a climate change hotspot, not only because of the projected changes in temperature and rainfall patterns, but also because of its complex geography and socioeconomic landscape which make it particularly vulnerable to the amplified intensity and unpredictability of these events.
For us in the Eastern Cape, floods are no longer a matter of ‘might’ but rather a ‘when’ and a ‘how hard’.
The provincial administration has to, in the short-term, learn from its response to the disaster that has hit the OR Tambo district and build its capacity for disaster planning, for warning detection, for disaster response, including the securing of the assets needed for adequate disaster responsiveness.
Obviously, there are other long-term interventions that are necessary to build the province’s resilience against the escalating threats of climate change, and to move the province away from reactive measures, but for now, and most pressingly, we need to make sure our response is informed, timely, appropriate and effective.
Nontando Zintle Ngamlana is the executive director of Afesis, a social justice organisation specialising in land, housing and local governance. She writes in her personal capacity.
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