Fieldtrip to the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre

From 24-31 of July 2023, the Global Initiative on Disaster Risk Management (GIDRM), the Disaster Risk Reduction Unit (DRRU) of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat and the consultancy team from the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) visited the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre (SHOC) in Nacala, Mozambique. The visit set a milestone towards the “Development of the Sustainability Plan and Business Continuity model for the SHOC”, which is supported by GIZ and implemented by GIDRM through the Study and Expert Funds (SEFs). The SHOC is steered towards becoming an effective and strategic focal point for DRR action and resilience building in the SADC region.

Besides visiting the SHOC, relevant critical infrastructure and the services’ provision for the functioning of the SHOC were reviewed. Additionally, stakeholders from the local, national and regional level engaged on how to strengthen risk-governance to effectively contribute to safeguarding developmental gains in the region within the broader SADC Secretariat and SHOC’s mandate.

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Key outcomes of the fieldtrip included:

  1. a shared understanding of the SHOC’s mandate favoring multi-level cooperation among critical infrastructure service providers (airport, railway, harbour, etc.) as well as encouraging engagement with different decision-making levels for enhanced risk-governance.
  2. interest by the public and private sectors to support the SHOC’s operations.
  3. the development of a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to assess risk tolerances and clarify the prioritized time frames for the restoration of services and resuming activities after critical infrastructure disruptions at a specified minimum acceptable capacity.
  4. the development of a risk profile, mainly based on the feedback of SHOC staff, for the centre’s disaster response capacity, outlining the various risks, their likelihood and potential impacts that its operations are or might be subjected to.

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