Botswana: Geographical position makes country vulnerable to disasters - NDMO
Francistown - National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) official, Dr Masego Mpotokwane, says Botswana's geographical position makes it vulnerable to disasters.
Speaking at a three-day Francistown district disaster workshop recently, Dr Mpotokwane said civil unrest in neighbouring countries are likely to pose a disaster risk as they could lead to influx of illegal immigrants in Botswana, adding that the problem should be rather perceived as a multi-sectoral issue than that of the Department of Labour and Home Affairs alone.
He said other disaster risks in Botswana include human epidemics such as HIV/AIDS and swine flu, wild fires, motor vehicle accidents due to animals on the roads and poor roads.
Dr Mpotokwane said although Botswana does not have any volcanic threats it has tectonics around the Maun area.
There is low magnitude of earthquakes taking place in Maun, therefore they could not cause any destruction, he said adding that there is a unit at the Department of Geological Survey monitoring the earthquakes.
For his part, NDMO Logistics Officer, Mr Maeletso Pego said the most disaster vulnerable districts were Southern, Ngamiland, Chobe, Kweneng, Mahalapye and Francistown.
He said the training workshops were aimed at capacity building for the district disaster management committees so that they could be in a position to implement disaster management at community level and to train participants in order to develop the ability to anticipate, estimate, plan and respond to various mainstream disaster risk reduction into their district development plans.
He called on the Francistown disaster management committee to encourage village development committees to come up with their disaster management plans because when tragedy strikes the community would be the first to assist the victims.
Mr Akshat Chaturvedi, who is NDMO Technical Advisor, shared Mr Pegos sentiments, adding that community involvement was crucial as every community has its own disaster coping and emergency response mechanism.
He however, said there would always be challenges as disaster preparedness would in some instances not be a priority for villagers, especially the unemployed and the poor.
He said the other challenge was that after the disasters the communities do not get immediate tangible gains such as houses and claims.
Francistown District Officer, Ms Kolobetso Sekwababe said in the past two years the outbreak of cholera, floods and influx of refugees have been a challenge the city's disaster management committee.
She however said as a result of the challenges the city managed will put in place a rapid response team to respond in times of disease outbreaks.
Ms Sekwababe lamented that during cholera outbreak they requested for funds from NDMO to improve the hall in which cholera clients were admitted, but they had not received any response yet. She also noted that during the floods some victims refused to be evacuated from their affected homes.
In response, Mr Pego noted that the cholera outbreak was health sector specific, therefore the funds should have been requested directly from the Ministry of Health as NDMO is directly responsible for funding related to the floods.
He said there was need to enact a law that would deal specifically with people who refuse to evacuate areas affected by floods as the problem is familiar around the country. In his presentation on Swine flu, Dr Dereje Habte of Palapye District Health Team said the epidemic affected all the continents and in Botswana 30 cases were reported.
On a positive note, Dr Habte said the swine flu vaccine was now ready, adding that some developed countries have promised to donate the vaccine to the third world.
He noted that the swine flu epidemic was to be regarded as a national issue rather than that of the Ministry of Health.