United Nations – Framework Convention on Climate Change
The UNFCCC secretariat (UN Climate Change) is the United Nations entity tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. UNFCCC stands for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Convention has near universal membership (198 Parties) and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all three agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.
African Risk Capacity – Sovereign Disaster Risk Solutions: A Specialised Agency of the Africa Union
ARC’s mission is to use modern finance mechanisms, such as risk pooling and risk transfer, to create pan-African climate response systems that enable African countries to meet the needs of people vulnerable to natural disasters.
The African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group is comprised of ARC Agency, a Specialised Agency of the African Union founded in 2012; and ARC Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd), a hybrid mutual insurer and the commercial affiliate of the Group founded in 2014.
ARC Agency was established to help African governments improve their capacities to better plan, prepare, and respond to natural disasters triggered by extreme weather events, as well as outbreaks and epidemics. On the other hand, ARC Ltd offers complementary risk pooling and risk transfer services. Together, the two provide Member States with capacity building and contingency planning services, access to state-of-the-art early warning systems, and risk pooling and transfer facilities towards building resilience against natural disasters such as droughts and tropical cyclones. In the process, the Group strives to apply gender equality principles and achieve inclusivity in the programme to ensure that no one is left behind.
ARC seeks to promote a proactive approach to Disaster Risk Management because as currently structured, the international system for responding to natural disasters is not timely or equitable. Funding is secured on a largely ad hoc basis after a disaster, significantly delaying much-needed relief to affected populations. In the meantime, lives are lost, assets are depleted, and development gains suffer major setbacks – forcing more people into chronic destitution and food insecurity.
Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) Limited – Africa’s First Sovereign Parametric Development Insurer
Founded in 2014, the African Risk Capacity Limited (ARC Ltd) is a hybrid mutual insurer and financial affiliate of the African Risk Capacity Group. The organisation provides parametric insurance services to AU Member States and farmer organisations, employing innovative financing mechanisms to pool disaster-related risk across Africa and transferring it to international risk markets. In so doing, it improves the continent’s response to climate-related disasters and contributes to resilience building and ultimately to food security. Efforts are ongoing to ensure the ARC product portfolio is reflective of the needs of Member States and provides progressive solutions to weather-related disasters.
ARC Ltd was established with a specific commercial mandate as a Class 2 mutual insurance company with seed capital funding. Its membership is by African Governments comprising of countries who have taken up a policy in any particular year, as well as capital contributors. It is seeded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and Germany’s KfW through BMZ. It will eventually be wholly owned by African sovereigns.
ARC Ltd carries out commercial insurance functions of risk pooling and risk transfer in accordance with national regulations for parametric weather insurance in Bermuda (where it is located until such time that an equally favorable legal and regulatory regime exists in an AU Member State). By transferring the burden of natural disaster risks away from governments and their populations, the organisation facilitates a more deliberated response approach to disasters. It disburses financing to fund pre-approved contingency plans to respond rapidly and predictably to disasters.
Spatial Technology For Natural Disaster Risk Management
Spatial information technology is a tool that supports for researching natural disaster risk management programs of flooding, fire forest, and landslides. Flooding disaster management provides a quick response to the rapid onset of disaster by Flood Early Warning System and Flood Monitoring and Mitigation, hence the use of NOAA AVHRR and GMS data in order to better mitigate and manage disasters. Developing a peat swamp forest fire disaster management system, improve the existing method of forest fire hazard assessment and dynamic distribution resource. The study integrates high spatial resolution remote sensor data with Geographyical Information System (GIS) data and multi criteria analysis for developing a methodology to model peat swamp forest fire disaster risk, to assist in providing decision support systems for emergency operations and prevention action. Landslide is the result of wide variety of processes, which included geological, geomorphological, and meteorological factors such as lithology, structure, soil cover, slope aspect, slope inclination, elevation, and rainfall. The spatial technology has the ability to assessment, estimation of landslide hazard region by creating thematic maps and overlapping them to produce final hazard map, that leads to instability in the region by classifying the region to three categories: low, medium, and high risk.
South Africa National Disaster Management Centre
The National Disaster Management Centre is established in terms of Section 8 of the Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act No 57 of 2002) (DMA). The National Centre functions as an institution within the public service and forms part of, and functions within, a department of state (DCOG) for which the Minister is responsible.The objective of the National Centre is to promote an integrated and co-ordinated system of disaster management, with special emphasis on prevention and mitigation, by national, provincial and municipal organs of state, statutory functionaries, other role-players involved in disaster management and communities.The National Centre is also responsible for the administration of the Fire Brigade Services Act, 1987 (Act No 99 of 1987) (FBSA)Within the South African environment, disaster management is a shared responsibility which must be fostered through partnerships between the various stakeholders and co-operative relationships between the different spheres of government, the private sector and civil society.
Furthermore, disaster management is an intergovernmental process, with each sphere of government playing a unique role and performing a specific set of responsibilities in the process. The DMA makes provision for the establishment of Disaster Management Centres across all spheres of government.The general powers and duties of the Nation Centre are stipulated in Section 15 of the DMA and this includes the following:must specialise in issues concerning disasters and disaster management:may act as an advisory and consultative body on issues concerning disasters and disaster management must promote the recruitment, training and participation of volunteers in disaster management;must promote disaster management capacity building, training and education throughout the Republic, including in schools, and, to the extent that it may be appropriate. in other southern African states;Section 6 of the DMA stipulates that the Minister must prescribe a national disaster management framework
