Managing the risk of a disaster is more critical than managing the disaster. This was the focus of the presentation by Dr Logan Munsamy titled ‘Social constraints in Disaster risk reduction models’. Dr Munsamy, a lecturer in the Department of Government Management at the Central University of Technology, was presenting at the Nature Inspired Solutions for the Built Environment (NISE 1): Integrated Natural and Engineered Systems Online Sandpit event.

The international two-day event saw a group of like-minded academics coming together to give talks on their research and how it contributes or can potentially contribute to development of next generation of ground intervention.

While completing his PhD, Dr Munsamy developed a model after studying the work of giants in the field of disaster management. “I looked at over 40 models to come up with a so-called universally accepted model which could be used at different levels to bring about a better understanding of disaster risk management. What normally is heard throughout the world is disaster management, and managing a disaster is a bit too late but managing the risks of disaster is early intervention,” he said.

“When we talk about natural disasters, its commonly assumed that it is beyond humanity, but global warming suggests that human behaviour is the cause of climate change resulting in erratic weather patterns which causes mass natural disasters and the end result is poverty alleviation and sustainable development. How ironic that we talk about poverty alleviation and sustainable development when we ourselves are responsible for disasters via global warming and climate change. And be that as it may the most vulnerable communities are the poorest of them all,” said Munsamy.

He further explained that disaster risk reduction is a multisectoral and multi-dimensional activity. “It cannot be attributed to one sector of a community, you don’t have to be an intellectual, you don’t have to have the capacity of a student or scholar of disaster risk reduction because disaster risk reduction is everybody’s business. And the first respondent to a disaster is the community and in many rural communities there may be many individuals that have not been to school and university. And in any case disaster risk reduction is a multisectoral and multi-dimensional because the answers and ready solutions that we learnt in schools suddenly in some cases may become useless and meaningless,” he added.

Developing resilience and building on community resilience is essential. “Most poverty-stricken communities do not have a voice or the political connections or access to support and because of that they rely on their own indigenous knowledge systems and developing their own adaptation strategies. To reduce the risk factors, we need to build on community resilience, we need to make sure that there is a strong institutional base at local and national level with priority being at local level. We need to identify and enhance early warning systems. We need to use the knowledge and innovation to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels,” concluded Dr Munsamy.

The conference was hosted by the University of East London and attended by academics and industry stakeholders from across the globe, with CUT’s Prof. David Ngidi and Prof. Albert Strydom as honorary guests.