Books (DAPAE)

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    Risks profile of natural hazards and selected diseases in Namibia
    (The Risk Profiling Project, 2024) Hipondoka, Martin; Hamunyela, Eliakim
    The occurrence and effects of natural disasters and infectious diseases in Namibia are diverse and vary in different areas, indicating the varying levels of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability within the Namibian society. The diverse and pervasive occurrence of these disasters are costly to the country when dealt with in a non-holistic manner. Consequently, Namibia promulgated a disaster risk management law, the Disaster Risk Management Act 10 of 2012, to provide a legal framework for managing disaster risks in the country. This legal instrument provided the necessary framework for facilitating the nation’s transition from disaster management to risk management and focus on resilience-building, which aligns with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. However, a comprehensive understanding of disaster risk for various hazards in the country was lacking. The Government of the Republic of Namibia, through the Office of the Prime Minister, commissioned this study to profile the disaster risks of pertinent natural hazards and selected diseases countrywide at the level of Population Enumeration Area, the lowest possible spatial scale in the country. The study profiled the vulnerability and risk of nine natural hazards (drought, flood, heatwave, wildfire, sea level rise, frost, earthquakes, windstorms and lightning) and five diseases (malaria, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, foot and mouth disease and diarrhoea). As the profile shows, there is not a single place in Namibia which is risk-free from all 14 hazards analysed in this profile. There are, however, areas that are free from some risks such as malaria, wildfire, foot and mouth disease, and sea level rise. At the same time, there is not a single place in Namibia which is at high risk of all 14 hazards. The profiled risks are spatially differentiated. Nevertheless, there are areas with high or very high risk levels for multiple disaster risks. In the Zambezi Region, for example, there are areas compounded with a high or very high risk of floods, malaria, diarrhoea, and foot and mouth disease. The south eastern part of the //Kharas Region is concurrently under high or very high risk of heatwaves, frost and earthquakes. This speaks to the need for resilience building efforts to be risk-holistic and area-specific, to reduce vulnerability and disaster risk of the communities and infrastructure. Thus, this profile has established the baseline information necessary for Namibia to move from managing natural disasters and leverage the mechanism for disaster risk reduction in accordance with the Sendai Framework. However, there is a need to integrate disaster risk maps in the planning processes at all levels of government and across all sectors to reduce the impacts of natural hazards on society. For this integration to be effective, it is imperative to develop an integrated and spatially-enabled data management system for storing data on hazards, risks, vulnerabilities, impacts and interventions to support resilience-building efforts. This data management system should be accompanied by mandatory and standardised annual reporting of all hazards and their impacts to ensure that resilience-building efforts are evidence-based