Recently, the Southern African Development Community held a summit in Swaziland to discuss and set up a fund that will be primarily for the use of natural disasters such as droughts, floods cyclones, and insect pets. Many southern African leaders like the Prime minister of Mozambique, Carlos Agostinho do Rosario, have suggested that these nations work together and create a fund that will be available to all member countries in the case of natural disasters. Because many of these nations have experienced natural adversities, this fund will serve as a great source of relief and will benefit the community of southern Africa as a whole.
In the up and coming year, the Southern African Development Community hopes to gain the necessary funds to help these countries and soon define how member nations will have access to the funds. The southern African region has faced difficulty in responding to the natural disasters. The King of Swaziland, Mswati III, recognized this and has tried to raise resources to aid the 41 million people affected by droughts in the region.
So far the Southern African Development Community has been able to raise 979 million US dollars from its member nations but unfortunately, this is only 34% of the total amount required to properly aid the people in these regions. Mswati has been a leader in pushing these Southern African nations to contribute more financially to prevent future deficits. He seems to recognize that this fund needs to implemented as soon as possible and present harmonized methods to approaching disaster management. According to the Southern African Development Community, the summit stressed the importance of regional industrialization and how it can benefit not only these nations but the funds used to provide aids in the case of natural disasters.
The question still remains: will member nations continue to allocate their finances to this fund? If so where will these funds come from considering most have problems within their own governments relating to money and power?
It's great to learn that the citizens have taken matters into their own hands as their government is not taking the matter seriously. When reading, I started thinking back to last class and we talked about culture being a possibile barrier between countries in terms of providing aid.
ReplyDeleteThis news could be related to the similar fund we read about that was set up in the Caribbean. It is very interesting when countries combine funds and resources to create systems in case of natural disasters. I think it was one of the only times when countries collaborate positively prior to an event instead of in reaction to an event. It also allows countries to start talking about the roots of natural disasters which in some cases could lead to discussions surrounding climate change.
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