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BOTSWANA: More floods expected

15 May 2009 08:37:48 GMT
Source: IRIN

Background

• Disaster risk reduction

• South East Asia Monsoon

• Floods

JOHANNESBURG, 15 May 2009 (IRIN) - More floods should be expected in Botswana, the Red Cross has warned. Almost 4,000 people were displaced in March 2009 by some of the worst flooding ever seen in the northwest, prompting criticism of the country's early warning system.

Most of the displaced are still sheltering in 10 emergency camps around the country, while the swollen Okavango River - the region's fourth largest waterway – has shown little signs of abating, said Tummie Teseletso, a spokeswoman for Botswana Red Cross. With waters continuing to rise, aid agencies and government have not yet been able to quantify the extent of the damage.

Seasonal flooding occurs from late May to early June, and Teseletso said more communities would see flooding in the coming weeks as water moved down the extensive river system of which the Okavango is a part.

This year's abnormally heavy rains were an eye-opener to many in government and civil society. Gabaake Gabaake, Botswana's Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, told a recent workshop on cross-border water management in Gaborone, the capital, that flood damage could have been minimised if an early warning system had been in place.

Before the water rises

A National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), responsible for instituting early warning systems, was set up in 1998. But in Botswana as well as flood-stricken neighbouring Namibia the warning systems remain weak compared to other disaster preparedness efforts in the region, such as in Mozambique, said Matthew Cochrane, communications manager of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Southern Africa.

NDMO spokesman Tebogo Modiakgotla said although no formal agreements existed between Angola, Namibia and Botswana, they shared data on water levels and potential floods. He did not comment on the state of Botswana's early warning systems, but noted that flood prediction was not perfect science.

"It is difficult to tell without a thorough analysis whether the current flood in an upstream area is going to result in a flood downstream," he said. "Flooding in one country does not necessarily translate to floods in another country."

Climate change experts have forecast that the flood-prone areas of southern Africa and even communities not usually affected by seasonal flooding are likely to see more severe flooding more often. Cochrane said early warning systems would play a vital role in making sure information reached people in time.

Early warning systems make sure the kinds of scientific warnings coming out of New York are getting down to community level, and there's more to them than just running into a community saying, 'Get out, get out!'

"This year the floods were so bad that they affected communities who had never in living memory experienced something like this - they may not have seen the signals that other communities more regularly affected by flooding did," he said.

"Early warning systems make sure the kinds of scientific warnings coming out of New York are getting down to community level, and there's more to them than just running into a community saying, 'Get out, get out!'," Cochrane told IRIN.

Teseletso said more needed to be done, including raising awareness of the system at community level. The Botswana Red Cross Society is working closely with the government to strengthen the early warning system and make sure that neighbouring Angola and Namibia, who share several large rivers with Botswana, are also involved.

A recent report by the UK-based aid agency, Oxfam, projected that by 2015 climate disasters would affect 50 percent more people than at present, overwhelming the humanitarian aid system.

Making the move to higher ground?

The Botswana government is looking to purchase land above the floodwater mark, identified by the Land Board, on which to place some of those affected, said the NDMO's Modiakgotla.

Thuku Bareeleng, who works for the KCS Every River Project, a conservation NGO based in Maun, the biggest town in the Okavango Delta, said government was negotiating with communities dependent on the Okavango as to whether they would be compensated for the loss or interruption of livelihoods, should they move.

The organisation's CEO, Felis Monggae, said so far communities had been adamantly opposed to moving. Bareeleng said for many with no other means of livelihood, the river was a source of much needed food and income.

Although Nicholas Molefhe now lives in Gaborone, he comes from one of the flood-affected villages in northwestern Botswana. He said his family had been told to move and had fought it, but they were now spread out between camps and there was no one left in his village.

"I remember when I was young, a neighbour encouraged my father to move our homestead to higher ground, but he argued against the proposal, saying we had to be on the plain because that is where our fields were."

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