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After South Africa’s battle with the record-breaking drought of 2015, Prof Andries Jordaan from our Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa(DiMTEC) saw room for improvement in dealing with this kind of disaster.
Drought impact
Commercial farmers who are usually net exporters of food crops and communal farmers who own the bulk of the country’s livestock, were all hit hard in 2015. Most of the latter had no resources to spare as the drought progressed. The concern about the drought’s impact on the country’s food production and availability resulted in a joint goal of preventing food scarcity during future droughts.
Prof Jordaan’s visit to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the US, several years ago prepared him to better equip communities in South Africa to deal with drought situations. “I recognised that in spite of the impact DiMTEC has been able to make on disaster preparedness, a gap remained in disaster response in South Africa.”
Sharing knowledge
In August this year Prof Jordaan again visited the NDMC. This time he requested a few key players in South Africa’s agriculture and disaster response communities to join him. With him were Janse Rabie, head of Natural Resources at AgriSA, a nonprofit organisation that functions as an interface between the government and about 28 000 South Africa farmers, and Moses Musiwale Khangale, director of Fire Services for the South African Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
The South African delegation met with and learnt from climatologists, geospatial technologists, and outreach and planning analysts.
UFS Council wishes outgoing rector well
2008-09-05
Statement by Judge Faan Hancke, Chairperson of the UFS Council
The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) hereby expresses its heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Prof. Frederick Fourie for his contribution to building and developing the UFS. His association with the UFS stretches over a period of 40 years – first as a student, later as a lecturer, dean, vice-rector and finally as rector and vice-chancellor.
When the University was operating at a loss during 2000 and it was in a financial crisis, he came up with a financial turn-around strategy which took the UFS out of this crisis to a position where it can annually spend considerable amounts on strategic projects. This led to large amounts being invested in the academia and especially research. As a result, the UFS’s research capacity and research equipment has been expanded. Since 2003 research outputs increased with about 50%, which is a great achievement for the UFS’s researchers and its faculties.
Progress was also made with diversity, the UFS’s balanced multilingualism policy in the academia as well as administration, employment equity, the transformation plan and the institutional charter. Under his leadership there was an upgrading and extension of the infrastructure, academic buildings and facilities as well as support services and student facilities.
Prof. Fourie has an excellent intellect and exceptional abilities which can still make a huge contribution to the improvement of the South African society. As a result of personal consideration and after 4 decades’ association with the UFS including 5 years in a leading position, Prof. Fourie decided to step down. The Council respects this decision and wishes him success and best wishes.
The process of appointing a new rector and vice-chancellor will follow the normal recruitment procedure of the UFS. In terms of this procedure a representative committee of Council, which includes all stakeholders of the UFS, will consider applications that are received.
Applications will be invited through an open and targeted process of recruitment advertising, locally, nationally and internationally to broaden the pool of applicants.
Within this process Council has expressed the view that applications from the designated groups in terms of Employment Equity must be encouraged.
It is also Council’s wish that this process be completed as soon as is possible, within the approved procedure.
Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
12 September 2008