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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.
State of our campuses: UFS campuses to remain closed on Monday 26 September 2016
2016-09-24
Based on
a discussion requested by the Student Representative Council (SRC) and the Free Education Movement (FEM) this morning, the senior leadership of the University of the Free State
(UFS) decided that all three campuses will remain closed on Monday 26 September 2016.
This means that no academic and administrative services will be available on Monday.
There will also be no classes and no tests will be written.
On Monday the senior leadership will receive a memorandum, as well as a social compact governing student
conduct during student protests from the student leadership . It was agreed that the senior leadership will respond to the memorandum as soon as possible.
The senior
leadership appreciates the peaceful nature in which yesterday’s march to the Provincial offices took place; unlike the disruptive way in which groups of students reacted to the
announcement on fees by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, on Monday 19 September 2016.
Arrangements in terms of the academic calendar will
remain as was communicated to staff and students on Thursday 22 September 2016. Students who missed tests and/or lectures from 19 to 26 September 2016 are requested to contact
their respective faculties on Tuesday 27 September 2016.
There will be no further notices of suspension of any academic or administrative services after Monday 26
September 2016.
Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director:
Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393