Deputy Minister Bernice Swarts: National Consultative Workshop

Programme Director, Mr Oupa Segalwe;
Board Chairperson of the South African Weather Service, Mr Itani Phaduli;
Chief Executive Officer of the South African Weather Service (SAWS), Mr Ishaam Abader;
Chief Director: Policy and Legislation at the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Jurgens Dyssel;
Representative of the World Meteorological Organisation, Dr Johan Stander;
Representative of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction; Mr. Nelson Muffuh
IFRC and Red Cross Representative, Mr Kopano Masilo;
SAWS staff;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen;

Good morning,

Let me start off by thanking the South African Weather Service (SAWS) for the hosting of this timely workshop. In the same breath, I wish to acknowledge all the other organisations and bodies represented here for throwing their collective weight behind this very crucial workshop.

The kind of work that has brought all of us together here this morning is such that no single organisation can accomplish it on their own. There is an urgent need for like-minded organisations like yourselves to pull together, rallying behind the common goal of saving lives from the effects of severe weather events.

By now, everyone in this room ought to be aware that South Africa is counted among the countries that are severely impacted by natural hazards and would therefore need to ensure that it mounts a solid defence to counter them.

At the most recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's (UNFCCC's) Conference of Parties (COP 28), held in Dubai last December, UN Secretary-General Mr António Guterres revealed that the whole of the African continent is almost defenceless against hazardous weather events.

Issuing a stern warning against the "dragging of feet" in implementing Early Warning Systems, Mr Guterres painted a rather gory and frightening picture of what lies in wait for countries that are moving slowly with regard to rolling out these lifesaving systems.

He said and I quote:

"Delayed action means, quite simply, more deadly extreme weather events. More deaths. More destruction. And less ability to recover. Those on the front line of the climate crisis will continue to pay the highest price."

This chilling, but frank statement, should give all of us a rude awakening. As it is, we are still coming to terms with the perishing of nearly 500 people, many destroyed homes, 40 000 misplaced people, 45 000 temporarily jobless people and infrastructural as well as economic damage with an estimated value of R17 billion, following the 11 April 2022 floods in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

As we speak, there are many families in Durban whose loved ones remain unaccounted for, more than two years since that catastrophe. Some of those affected have spoken of how they struggle to find closure, because their loved ones have not been declared deceased.

Even if authorities were to make such as declaration, finding closure for those affected is unlikely to be an easy path because they would still not have the mortal remains of their loved ones to bury.

Although we do not have the power to control nature, we ought to do all that is within our power to ensure that such a tragedy does not ever happen again in our country.

It is for this reason that, as the government of South Africa, we welcome this workshop. I am informed that among the role-players represented here are the:

• National Disaster Management Centre;
• South African Weather Service.
• The Department of Water and Sanitation;
• Council for Geoscience;
• Independent Communications Authority of South Africa;
• District/provincial/local government representatives;
• UN and international organisations active in early warning systems;
• Civil society organizations, including Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) active in early warning services, climate and disaster risk information; and
• The private sector, including the mobile network operators and the insurance industry.

As government, we are encouraged that you have all deemed it fit to answer to the SAWS' call and availed your expertise to help build the country's defence against hazardous weather, climate and flood events, with a view to helping protect everyone from these.

On 23 July 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the highly anticipated Climate Change Act into law. This legislation will provide impetus for mainstreaming our climate and disaster response by placing a legal obligation on every organ of state to coordinate and harmonise policies, plans, and programmes, to make sure climate change risks and associated vulnerabilities are acted upon by national, provincial and local government. A key part of building climate resilience is to set up "early-warning" systems so that communities can prepare for disasters before they happen. The 2019 Global Commission on Adaptation flagship report 'Adapt Now' found that Early Warning Systems provide more than a tenfold return on investment. The report also found that just 24 hours warning of a coming storm or heatwave can cut the ensuing damage by 30 per cent and spending US$ 800 million on such systems in developing countries would avoid losses of $3-16 billion per year.

In our country, the SAWS, working hand-in-glove with key stakeholders such as Disaster Management Authorities, is entrusted with taking the lead on the rollout of Early Warning Systems as part of the Early Warnings for All initiative.

Established in terms of the South African Weather Service Act, Act No. 8 of 2001, as amended, the SAWS is mandated to, among other things, provide public good services such as the weather and climate warning services intended for the general benefit of the population and the safety of life and property.

This includes the provision of daily rainfall and maximum and minimum temperature data to the general public, meteorological support for aviation and maritime search and rescue activities and services for the benefit of subsistence farmers and fisheries, to mention but a few.

Importantly, though, the SAWS Act identifies the SAWS as the country's single authoritative voice when it comes to the issuing of severe weather-related warnings. The SAWS is also a designated aeronautical meteorological authority in the country.

As government, we have to ensure that the SAWS is well endowed with an extensive observational infrastructure network and tools that enable it to deliver on its mandate efficiently and effectively.

These include, 12 meteorological Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR) systems, nearly 250 automatic weather stations, two climate stations, over 1200 manual rainfall stations, 153 automatic rainfall stations, 13 sea surface temperature stations and 47 weather buoys in the South Atlantic and South Indian Ocean.

In addition, the SAWS boasts one Global Atmosphere Watch Station, 11 upper-air soundings stations, 24 lightning detection sensors, 17 Air Quality measuring and monitoring stations and 12 solar radiation stations, among other technologies.

Equally extensive is its footprint, which comprises 22 offices spread across the country. Most of these offices are found in strategic locations such as airports.

The SAWS recently implemented a new warning system called Impact-Based Severe Weather Warning Systems which focuses on communicating the impact of the severe weather events. The current dissemination channels for Impact-Based warnings include SMS and email messages to disaster management practitioners, website, social media platforms and through media institutions (print, broadcast - TV and radio). However, these warning dissemination channels are not sufficient to reach the most vulnerable people, especially those in remote areas to ensure that warning messages reach the 57 million plus population of South Africa, and in line with the 7th global target of the Sendai Framework, which calls for substantial increase of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessment to people by 2030. Therefore, SAWS has undertaken initiatives which have three components to it, i.e. increasing the number of people receiving warning messages, educating people on impact-based alerts and translation of warnings to all eleven official languages of South Africa.

Last year, the SAWS issued a whopping 1 509 Impact-Based Forecasting warnings and 703 aerodrome warnings, all in an effort to help save lives. In recent months, we have seen the entity taking important initiatives such as the collaboration with global lightning detection specialist, Meteorage, to fulfil its mandate. Without a doubt, this was a groundbreaking intervention, given the danger that lightning poses to life. It is estimated that lightning kills more than 260 people every year in South Africa. This makes it one of the deadliest meteorological phenomena in the country.

Moreover, the SAWS is one of few African meteorological services that already implement nowcasting. Nowcasting refers to very short-range forecasting. Directly connected to observed weather, nowcasting involves mapping the current weather and using its estimated speed and the movement of its direction to carry out forecasts with a lead time of zero to six hours. This technique is considered crucial for alleviating the devastation that often comes with hazardous weather, and is thus critical for Early Warning Systems.

So advanced is the SAWS when it comes to nowcasting that some of its experts are helping neighbouring countries such as Zambia and Mozambique as part of the Weather and Climate Information Services Early Warnings for Southern Africa (WISER EWSA) programme to start implementing nowcasting.

This is not to say that the state of weather affairs in the country is picture-perfect. The situation could certainly be better. As the UN correctly points out, we are not where we ought to be to start rolling out Early Warnings Systems.

There are a few gaps here and there, which explain why we have an unacceptably high number of fatalities whenever mother nature unleashes her outbursts of meteorological wrath on hotspots such as the coastal provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

Another weakness manifests itself in the reported reluctance of some, especially among the vulnerable people, to be responsive to Disaster Management interventions such as evacuations, thereby putting their lives in peril.

Such incidents, although nor rife, point to weaknesses in our communication and awareness efforts. They suggest a lack of understanding - on the part of communities - of the roles of the different players in the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) community.

These are some of the matters that we really need to brush up on as a matter of urgency. This is precisely why this workshop is pivotal. It comes at an opportune time to help us introspect and identify all the gaps that exist in our DRR system so that we can come up with workable ideas on how such gaps are going to be plugged, putting us on a path to significantly saving more lives.

From the side of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, the SAWS enjoys our unconditional support. Two years ago, the department committed R100 million over three years to help the entity upgrade its infrastructure with, among other things, modern RADAR technology.

I cannot overemphasise the importance of infrastructure availability to be at the highest possible level. It is only in such circumstances that we would be able to improve the accuracy of weather predictions and disseminate warnings timeously, with sufficient lead times.

This will enable communities to ready themselves for severe weather and stay out of harm's way. Above all else, this will boost community resilience in the face of hostile weather events.

I believe I speak for my colleagues in the 7th administration when I say that all of the role-players here have the government's full support. Disaster Management, which falls under the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs; Government Communications and Information System, which is under The Presidency; ICASA, an independent constitutional institution which is under the umbrella of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies; you all have our backing.

It is in our best interests as government and as a country that you come out of this workshop with an implementable plan as to how we are going to roll out Early Warnings Systems so that lives can be shielded from the kind of catastrophes that we have experienced in the past.

Let us join hands to breathe life into this ambitious initiative, the Early Warnings for All initiative. We owe it to the people of this country to succeed in this regard.

Thank you.

For media enquiries, contact Peter Mbelengwa on 082 611 8197 / [email protected]

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.