Deputy Minister Swarts To Address National Workshop On Early Warnings In Tshwane

Deputy Minister Bernice Swarts from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) is set to open the National Consultative Workshop on Early Warnings for All (EW4All) in Tshwane on Monday.

"The workshop, which will be hosted by the South African Weather Service, comes as South Africa continues to rank among the Southern African countries that are vulnerable to hazardous weather events including severe floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, storms, and heat waves," the department said, SA News reported.

The three-day workshop will cover reviewing the current state of Early Warning Systems in South Africa and assessing progress in implementing the four key areas of EW4All. It will also explore how ongoing and future initiatives connect and align them with stakeholder commitments to improve early warning services.

Furthermore, the workshop will set up or confirm a national coordination mechanism to enhance early warning efforts across all key areas and link national and local actions. It will also identify gaps in the national Early Warning Systems using a checklist provided by the EW4All initiative.

It will also provide initial input for creating a multi-year, multi-stakeholder EW4All National Roadmap to guide resource allocation and technical support.

The workshop will include participants from the South African Weather Service (SAWS), the National Disaster Management Centre, the Departments of Water and Sanitation, and Communication and Digital Technologies.

Other attendees will be the Council for Geoscience, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, and representatives from provincial, district and local governments.

The program will also feature the UN and international organizations involved in Early Warning Systems, civil society groups such as Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) that work on early warning and disaster risk information, as well as private sector representatives including mobile network operators and the insurance industry.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) explained that EW4All is a United Nations (UN) initiative aimed at protecting everyone from dangerous weather, water or climate events through effective Early Warning Systems by the end of 2027.

The initiative focuses on pillars of Disaster Risk Knowledge and Management, Detection, Observation, Monitoring, Analysis and Forecasting, Warning Dissemination and Communication and Preparedness and Response Capabilities.

Early Warning Systems have reduced deaths and damage from hazardous events. However, there are still significant gaps, particularly in small island nations and least developed countries, as per the UN.