Disasters don’t wait for laggards

The newly passed Disaster Risk Management Law exemplifies everything not to do as disasters become more frequent and severe amid climate change, writes our Staff Reporter STEVEN PEMBAMOYO.

The devastation caused by Cyclone Freddy in Malawi has compelled Parliament to finally pass the Disaster Risk Management Bill, which has been in the making for six years.

In 2017, the government drafted the proposed law marking a shift from spending billions on disaster response to investing more in preventive measures and comprehensive disaster risk management.

In their minds, the policymakers saw the law awaiting President Lazarus Chakwera’s signature heralding deliberate and predictable investments in disaster risk reduction to lessen the impacts of disasters that have become more frequent and devastating amid climate change.

However, campaigners were horrified that for more than half a decade, the Bill was stuck in draft form at the Ministry of Justice despite Chakwera’s promise to swiftly take it to Parliament for debate.

Says Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) deputy director of disaster response Fyaupi Mwafongo: “Had this law been enacted in 2017, we wouldn’t have suffered the way we have during the recent cyclones because it promotes disaster preparedness apart from just response.”

Once signed into law by the President, it will transform Dodma into a standalone authority with powers and State funding to enforce disaster preparedness and risk reduction measures to prevent and reduce severe impacts of disasters.

It also creates the Disaster Risk Management Fund pooling all resources mobilised for disaster management activities for effective and efficient spending.

“Currently, Dodma does not have much power to enforce any measures except convincing people to change the way they behave towards the environment, but we can’t use force to move them from disaster zones,” explains Mwafongo.

The case in point is Cyclone Freddy, which had deadliest impact on the illegal settlements in the mudslide-prone slopes of Soche Hill in Blantyre, the worst-hit of the 15 affected districts.

“Most of the affected households were constructed in dangerous places such as mountain slopes, riverbanks and on drainage systems,” he states. “The newly passed law gives Dodma powers to move such people to safer places.”

This excites Civil Society Network on Climate Change (Cisonecc) chairperson Julius Ng’oma, a spirited campaigner for the law.

He says the country will continue suffering adverse climate-related disasters in the absence of proper laws to guide people’s behaviour when it comes to environmental management.

Ng’oma is concerned that three devastating cyclones—Idai in 2019, Ana last year and Freddy this year—ravaged Malawi while the law was gathering dust in policymakers’ shelves.

He wants an end to laxity in lawmaking as disasters do not wait for procrastinators.

“If we had enacted the proposed law as early as 2017, we would have minimised the impact of the cyclones. We wouldn’t be spending billions on relief items because the Bill already takes care of that,” he says.

The Cisonecc leader warns government against the reactive approach to disasters, saying it is more expensive than the preparedness and preventive approach promoted by the newly passed law.

Isaac Tchuwa, an expert from the Malawi University of Science and Technology, says Malawi needs to speedily strengthen its disaster approach as least developed countries bear the brunt of climate change fuelled by environmental degradation and carbon emissions from wealthy nations.

“The disaster risk law has taken too long. It should have replaced the old law [of 1991] which focuses more on disaster response than life-saving steps to follow before disasters occur. We need laws to guide Dodma on this,” he says.

Habitat for Humanity programme manager Lucy Mwale says disasters have become more devastating due to unregulated housing.

She says the impact will only worsen unless government enforces the dos and don’ts where settlements and homes take shape.

“Currently, 75 percent of Malawians live in substandard houses and when disasters come, these are the first houses to be damaged, increasing the severity of the problem of housing units,” says Mwale.

Habitat for Humanity assessments show that Malawi has to construct 25 000 houses every year for the next decade to curb housing problems that force people to settle in substandard houses and disaster-prone zones.

“This is not as easy as it sounds because it needs heavy investment,” warns Mwale.

In the wake of Cyclone Freddy, Ministry of Justice chief legislative counsel Aman Mussa expressed optimism that the long-debated Bill would be tabled in Parliament.

“We are working tirelessly to have this Bill finalised. In fact, it is our priority now that it goes to Parliament before the close of this meeting,” he said.

The law was unanimously passed once tabled in Parliament last week.

However, Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change chairperson Werani Chilenga is worried that the Ministry of Justice keeps doing business as usual when it comes to laws associated with environment management and climate shocks.

He said: “Parliament was ready years back to pass this Bill, but we kept getting promises which never come to pass.

Now we are wondering why this Bill was a problem when other Bills take a short period of time to be debated in Parliament.”

Cyclone Freddy has claimed over 1 000 lives from over 2.2 million affected people in the Southern Region. Activists want Chakwera to quickly assent to the new law because disasters do not wait for laggards.