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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.
Prof Jeffrey Sachs presented with honorary doctorate at Spring Graduation Ceremony
2015-10-01
Prof Jeffrey Sachs (centre) with Prof Philippe Burger,
Head of Department: Economics (left), and
Prof HJ Kroukamp, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and
Management Sciences (right).
Photo: Charl Devenish |
“Quality education is the best accelerator for sustainable growth. Universities have a unique role to play in this regard,” Prof Jeffrey Sachs said during a lecture he presented at the University of the Free State (UFS) Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. He gave an insightful overview of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The 17 SDGs replace the Millennium Development goals of the past 15 years. In a major achievement, 193 countries will sign the goals at the United Nations (UN) in New York on 25 September 2015.
Prof Sachs is the director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet professor of Sustainable Development, and professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also a special advisor to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, and director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Another accolade now added to his résumé is an honorary doctorate in Economics conferred on him by the UFS at the Spring Graduation Ceremony on 17 September 2015 for outstanding achievements and contribution to academia.
“South Africa is not achieving sustainable development. It has the highest inequality in the world with high unemployment among the youth. Quality education is the best accelerator for growth,” Prof Sachs said. He used the high education investment in Korea as an example of that country’s growth. Prof Sachs added that the government cannot achieve the SDGs on its own. “It is important for the country and universities to take on the goals. Universities can apply pressure, influence and provide solutions.”