Staff Writer
Zimbabwe’s outdated disaster management laws are hindering the country’s ability to effectively respond to natural disasters as climate change intensifies, a new report shows.
The Department of Civil Protection, tasked with coordinating disaster risk management, operates under the Civil Protection Act of 1989, a piece of legislation that has not been updated to reflect the evolving challenges posed by climate change.
Despite government efforts to modernise the legal framework for over a decade, a new bill remains a work in progress. While the cabinet has approved the principles of risk management, the actual drafting of the bill has yet to commence.
A report by the African Development Bank (AfDB) says the absence of an updated act weakens the Department of Civil Protection’s coordination role, its ability to convene stakeholders, and its capacity to devolve functions to local communities.
“Absence of the updated Act weakens the coordination role of Department of Civil Protection, its convening power as well as devolution of functions to the last mile,” the AfDB report on Mitigating Fragility Through Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme in Southern Africa says.
“Key challenges include weak coordination of stakeholders, weak monitoring and evaluation systems of the Disaster Risk Management sector, conflicting functions of institutions mandated to issue early warning messages (as such people at risk do not get timely information for informed decision-making), disintegrated early warning systems, weak solutions for ex-ante climate risk management and weak data and information systems on vulnerable areas and populations.”
The report highlighted that Zimbabwe has 65 districts, but Disaster Risk Management doesn’t have a presence at the provincial and district levels as such functions are managed under the Directorate of Planning who have a core mandate of planning.
The AfDB is implementing a project to enhance strengthening devolved structures in partnership with institutions that are supporting the government like the United Nations Development Programme, noting that crises happen at the lower administrative levels.
The project will also work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to deliver risk management solutions to 16,000 displaced persons and their host communities who are equally at risk of exposure to climatic shocks including extremes of drought and flooding.
Until 2000, Zimbabwe suffered mostly from drought, but the country is experiencing growing impacts of climatic events including floods and tropical cyclones.
The tropical cyclones breed secondary crises including geophysical hazards and outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, bilharzia and malaria.
For the past two decades, Zimbabwe has experienced impacts from tropical cyclone Idai (2019) tropical storm Batsirai, tropical storm Chalane (2020), Eloise (2021) tropical cyclone Ana (2022), tropical cyclone Freddy (2023) and currently drought-induced by El Nino.
Previously the country suffered from cyclone Eline in February 2000, cyclone Dineo in February 2017, and several incidences of El Nino-induced droughts.
The growing climate-related crises in Zimbabwe from one season to another continue to put the rainfall-dependent population into food insecurity and the population that is exposed to climate-related crises doesn’t recover from one season to another.
