Prelims

Half Title Page

Disaster Management in Sub-Saharan Africa

Title Page

Disaster Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies, Institutions and Processes

EDITED BY

ROLAND AZIBO BALGAH

The University of Bamenda, Cameroon

AND

JUDE NDZIFON KIMENGSI

Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

The University of Bamenda, Cameroon

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2022

Editorial Matter and Selection © 2022 Roland Azibo Balgah and Jude Ndzifon Kimengsi.

Individual chapters © the respective Author/s.

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ISBN: 978-1-80262-818-0 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-817-3 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-819-7 (Epub)

Contents

List of Tables and Figures

About the Authors

Harrison Esam Awuh is a Political Ecologist and Human Geographer by training. He is a Senior Researcher at Aeres University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Head of Research at Flevo Campus (the Netherlands); and, Guest Researcher at the African Studies Centre (Leiden University, The Netherlands). His research interests cut across sustainable transformations, discourse and inequalities (exclusion/inclusion). His current focus is on healthy and sustainable food transformations from a consumer perspective. Prior to that, he has conducted research and published several peer-reviewed papers on sustainability in the nature conservation sector in Africa (Cameroon) and entrepreneurship in Africa (Ghana). He also worked on a collaborative research project on sustainability in the frugal innovation sector together. This was part of the Leiden University, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Delft University cooperation on frugal innovations. He has taught several courses on sustainability, urban political ecology and research methods to master’s and bachelor degree students at Leiden University, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium) and Aeres University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands).

Bishawjit Mallick is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Global Fellow at the Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS) at University of Colorado Boulder, USA, and holds a Researcher position at Chair of Environmental Development and Risk Management at TU Dresden, Germany. He is interested in ‘non-migration of people at risks’ in the context of climate change adaptation (why do people at risk not migrate, and how do they survive in vulnerable environments?) and the role of short-term migration in shaping long-term non-migration. However, his current research (under the MSCA individual grant) focusses on the historical grounding of non-migration (the reasons why people voluntarily remain in place for generations; how the social, environmental and political regimes contribute to staying put). He employs both qualitative and quantitative social research methods in his ongoing researches.

Harry Wirngo Mairomi holds a PhD in Geography with specialty in Environmental and Resource Geography from the University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. Prior to this, he worked with the Geospatial Technology Group on forest inventory and management in Cameroon and the Congo between 2012 and 2015. His research interest focusses on natural resources (rangelands, forest, wetlands) and in climate change and regional planning. He holds the position of Country Coordinator for the African Planners Institute in Cameroon. Presently, he is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Bamenda, Cameroon.

Jude Ndzifon Kimengsi is Leader of the Research Group on Forest Institutions and International Development (FIID) at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Technische Universität Dresden (Germany) and an Associate Professor in Resource and Environmental Geography at the University of Bamenda. Prior to this, he was Senior Lecturer/Researcher and Head of Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at CATUC. He worked as Consultant on Sustainable Development and Coordinator of Research, Consultancy and Publications Division at the Pan African Institute for Development – West Africa. He is an Associate Editor for Nature Social Sciences (Springer); an Editor for Scientific African (Elsevier); and editorial board member for Environmental Research Communications (IOPscience), Forest Policy and Economics (Elsevier) and Canadian Journal of Tropical Geography (Laurentian University – Canada). Since 2018, he has been serving as Facilitator at a United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) International Postgraduate Course on Environmental Management for Developing Countries. He is a Pioneer Fellow of the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists (CAYS), an Associate Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and a Board Member of the Global Environmental Non-Migration Network.

Richard Achia Mbih is an Assistant Teaching Professor of African Studies and Rural Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His research interests focus on agro-pastoralism, natural resource conflicts, environment and development studies in sub-Saharan Africa.

Roland Azibo Balgah is Associate Professor of Development Studies at the University of Bamenda (UBa), Cameroon, and a Volkswagen Foundation Research Fellow. He holds a Dr Agriculturarum from MLU, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Prior to engaging with UBa, he coordinated several development projects in Africa and was Dean of Studies at the Pan African Institute for Development in West Africa (PAID-WA). His research focusses on human–nature interactions, the sustainability of both, thrusting on hazards and livelihoods. He is editorial board member of several journals and member of Emerald Literati Network. He is credited with 3 postdoctoral research experiences and over 80 publications.

Henry Ngenyam Bang is a scholar in African disaster management with substantial teaching, research and professional experience in Africa and the United Kingdom. He has been lead researcher in several disaster management projects at the national, regional and local levels in many African countries. Additionally, he is a Disaster Management Trainer with the Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre (BUDMC0). He has a strong track record for high-quality publications on disaster management and related themes in top international journals. His background is in Geology (BSc, MSc) obtained in Africa and International Development (PhD) obtained in the United Kingdom.

Jeremiah Ogaga Ejemeyovwi holds a PhD Economics degree with a successful academic and work track record. He naturally tends to maximise opportunities through the successful development and implementation of well-researched and successful initiatives. He is a research fellow at Center for Economic Development and Policy Research (CEPDeR). He was also the best doctoral graduate in the Department of Economics and Development and the College of Management and Social Sciences, Covenant University, Nigeria. He has authored several high-impact published papers in the field of Knowledge Economics, Development and Energy Economics.

Evans Stephen Osabuohien is a Professor of Economics and Head of Department at Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria. In 2020, he was recognised as one of the six youngest professors in Nigeria. He pioneered the Centre for Economic Policy and Development Research (CEPDeR) as well as the Regional Centre of Expertise, Ogun State (RCE Ogun) at Covenant University. He is a Visiting Professor at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany, and Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. He is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Swedish Institute, among others. He has published 3 books and over 150 scholarly articles. He is a member of numerous professional associations, a reviewer and editorial board member for many journals.

Oseghale Baryl Ihayere is a PhD candidate in the Department of Economics and Development Studies at Covenant University, Nigeria. He is an Academic Staff at the National Institute of Construction Technology and Management where he lectures macroeconomics, quantitative finance, applied statistics. He is also the Acting Head of the Department of Statistics. To further boost his knowledge base and contribution to knowledge, he was recently inducted as a Research Associate, Centre for Economic Policy and Development Research. His research areas include development economics, inclusive growth and applied economics. When he is not teaching, he contributes to impact programmes as a child rights advocate where he sits on the board of directors of various non-governmental organisations such as G.I.V.E Foundation, Target a Child, Art and Child.

Olanrewaju Olaniyi Omosehin holds a master’s degree (MAgricTech) in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria, and bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. He also holds a mini MBA from Tekedia Institute, Boston, USA. He has some publications to his name with several others under review in a reputable journal. His research interest is focussed on international trade, agribusiness management, agricultural economics, production economics, econometrics, welfare economics and policy analysis. He’s a member of many professional bodies including International Food and Agribusiness Management Association.

Angie Osarieme Igbinoba is a budding academic scholar, researcher and educator who holds a BSc and an MSc in Mass Communication. She has natural abilities and competency skills in various forms of communication, proofreading/editing, counselling/consultation (academic & non-academic), entrepreneurship, teaching and research. Her general teaching/research interests cover communication and leadership issues, communication and management issues, communication and legal/ethical issues, communication and religious/moral issues, communication and educational issues, communication and media issues as well as communication and science/technology issues. Her central research focus is Health Communication (which cuts across human health, animal health, plant health, occupational health and environmental health).

Theobald Mue Nji holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Buea. He holds three master’s degrees: MSc in Sociology from the University of Buea, MSc in Anthropology of Health and Development from The University of Douala and MPhil in the Teaching of Philosophy from The University of Yaounde I, all in Cameroon. He has over 25 publications and 17 years of professional working experience. He lectures at the Universities of Buea and Bamenda University of Science and Technology and researches at Research Foundation in Tropical Diseases and Environment. His research interest is in climate change-related hazards and disasters, control of emerging and neglected tropical diseases, behaviour change patterns and sustainable development.

Ayienda Kemunto Carolynne holds a Master of Science degree in Statistics from University of Nairobi-Kenya and Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Nairobi-Kenya. She has 12 years of professional working experience. She works with National Drought Management Authority Kenya whose mandate is drought risk management and adaptation to climate change. Her research interests are in climate change, disaster risk reduction, food security in changing climate, community sustainable development and support for girl and boy child education from vulnerable communities. She is extremely passionate about climate change and food security.

Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo, who is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the University of Buea, holds a doctorate from the University of Yaoundé (1991). Postdoctoral studies at the Universities of Poitiers and Besançon led to the Habilitation (2009). He has published a wide variety of books (single authored or edited), articles and book chapters in the domains of sociology and anthropology with a more recent concern in environmental issues (climate change, hazards and disasters). He is a Fellow of the College of Social Sciences of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences.

Emmanuel Innocents Edoun holds a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in Public Sector Economics. He has well-grounded working experience in rural and urban settings in South Africa and abroad in this field, and wide interaction experience with policymakers, implementers and community members across Africa. He is endowed with excellent organisational management skills. He has supervised many postgraduate students and has published many articles in DHET-accredited journals and has conference experiences in Africa, Europe and Canada. Currently, he works at Tschwane School of Business and Society in South Africa.

Genevieve Fotso Bakam holds a PhD in Quality and Operations Management with a focus in digitalisation and management processes from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Previously, she worked as IT Consultant on Management Software in many companies in Africa such as Barloworld Logistics, Incledon in South Africa; Heineken Breweries in Ethiopia; and National Electricity Company in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently, she is Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. She has published articles in DHET-accredited journals and was lead scientist for ‘Disaster Risk management in South Africa’ Project in 2019.

Lydia Kwoyiga holds a PhD in Environmental Science from Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. She holds two master’s degrees: MSc in International Environmental Studies from Norwegian University of Life Sciences and MPhil in Development Geography from University of Oslo all in Norway. She has about 10 years of professional working experience. She works at the University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana, since 2013 as a lecturer. Her research area straddles groundwater and local livelihoods, institutions and the environment, climate change adaptation, rural women and agriculture, community-based ecotourism and sustainable development and higher education.

Ebenezer Owusu-Sekyere is a Professor of Human Geography at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He holds a PhD in Geography and Resource Development; Masters in Geography and Resource Development, from the University of Ghana and BEd(Hons) in Social Science with specialisation in Geography from the University of Cape Coast. His research interests include urban environment and governance, waste management, informal sector and disaster management. He has over 15 years of professional working experience and has collaborated with local and international partners on several research and development projects, funded by DFID, WFP and the World Bank, among others.

Preface

More than ever before, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster risk management (DRM) policies, institutional frameworks, processes and related issues are gaining increasing importance at national, regional and international levels. The importance is not surprising, given the current surging levels of hazards and disasters and their future predictions. According to the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR, 2019), multi-hazards affected over 88 million people worldwide between 1997 and 2017. Floods alone are accounting for almost 88% (76 million) of those affected by natural hazards and disasters.¹ In the past 50 years, some 11,000 mostly weather-related disasters (such as floods and droughts) claimed over 2 million lives, leaving behind economic losses to the tune of US$3.6 trillion. Thirty-five percentage of deaths related to weather, climate and water extremes occurred in Africa (WMO, 2020). Two of the three top affected countries (Kenya and South Africa) are in sub-Saharan Africa (CRED, 2019). In the absence of sufficient efforts, the number of people affected by disasters will surge by 50% in 2030 (UNDRR, 2019). A rapid paradigm reversal at global and regional levels is needed to backstop natural disaster effects. Policies that move from response strategies towards disaster preparedness, risk reduction and mitigation are urgently needed (Buchenrieder, Brandl, & Balgah, 2021).

The international community recognises this and has made tremendous efforts in the last decade towards DRR. The two key instruments in this direction are the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–2015) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030). Both are indicators of international political will to rapidly drift from disaster management towards risk reduction.² It then becomes imperative for developing countries, which are currently hardest hit by hazards and disasters to develop policy frameworks which align with these international instruments (UNISDR, 2021; WMO, 2020). In fact, about 80% of the world’s poorest countries will be living in fragile contexts by 2030 if considerable efforts are not made to enhance and strengthen DRR strategies in these countries (OECD, 2018).

Over 90% of the world’s current poorest countries are located in Africa, the bulk of them in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, sub-Saharan Africa is hardest hit by natural hazards and disasters in Africa (UNDRR, 2019). The presence of widespread poverty and increasing natural disasters suggest an urgent need for policies and institutions, to backstop the escalation of hazards and disasters in the short run and their potential transformation into complex emergencies in the long run.³ What is the current state of policy and institutional frameworks in sub-Saharan African countries? What challenges or shortcomings abound? How do these policies resonate with the African Union’s strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (AU-DRR)? To what extent does the AU-DRR align with international risk reduction frameworks? This edited volume provides urgently needed initial responses to these questions.

To set the stage, Chapter 1 presents a review of key concepts commonly used in the disaster parlance. This is intended as a quick reminder for experts in the field and to motivate understanding for non-expert readers. Chapter 2 reviews key international DRM frameworks, particularly the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Hyogo Framework for Action. This is important to eventually situate the African policies within important international regime frameworks. Chapter 3 critically assesses the AU-DRR strategy. Central to this is the analysis of processes, institutions and arrangements that shaped the development of the AU-DRR strategy document and the AU-DRR’s alignment to international expectations. Chapters 4 and 5 analyse policies and institutional frameworks for DRR in Cameroon (Central Africa) and Nigeria (West Africa), respectively. These five review-based chapters constitute the first part of this book: A Review of Disaster Management Concepts and Policy Processes.

Part II of this book, Disaster Management Institutions, Policy and Processes: Empirical Evidence, constitutes three empirically oriented chapters from Kenya (Eastern Africa), The Republic of South Africa (Southern Africa) and Ghana (West Africa), respectively.

This edited volume contributes to the contextual knowledge on DRM in sub-Saharan Africa. It also contains an extensive glossary of disaster-related terms, which can be helpful to students, lecturers, other scholars and policy actors within and outside of the disaster management discipline. It is my fervent expectation that different actors will optimise the potentials offered by the insights of the scholarly contribution to DRR and DRM.

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Gertud Buchenrieder (1 October 2021)

Universität der Bundeswehr München (UniBw M)

Department of Social Sciences and Public Affairs

RISK (Risk, Infrastructure, Security and Conflict) Research Center

Professor for Development Economics and Policy

Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39

85577 Neubiberg, Germany

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge the following institutions for their support in this edited volume:

• –

  The Volkswagen Foundation, Germany, in the form of a Postdoctoral Extension Grant (Grant No. 94 662, 2018–2020) on the topic: ‘Analyzing Policy and institutional Frameworks for Disaster Risk Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa’.

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  The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study – STIAS, Stellenbosch, South Africa, by providing logistic and financial support for Guest Researcher stay by the lead author at STIAS, from 1 May to 11 June 2021.

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  The Technische Universitat Dresden (Faculty of Environmental Science) for providing the necessary working space and research environment to realise this project.