Living with drought in South Africa: lessons learnt from the recent El Nino drought period
Living with drought in South Africa: lessons learnt from the recent El Nino drought period
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.05.005
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发表时间：
2017-08-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Naik, Myra
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Baudoin, Marie-Ange;Vogel, Coleen;Naik, Myra
南非易受干旱影响。该国最近经历了严重干旱和强烈厄尔尼诺现象的综合影响，对生计条件和经济增长造成严重影响。通过研究国家对干旱的反应，特别是对当前2016年厄尔尼诺相关干旱的反应，我们揭示了应对干旱的一些“症结”以及延迟采取行动以减少干旱影响的风险。限制行动的复杂和看似官僚主义的障碍被证明是阻碍并继续阻挠该国有效应对干旱的繁琐因素。由于官僚机构无法作出迅速和灵活的反应，许多非政府组织和民间行为者加紧提供援助。正如这项研究所表明的那样，虽然南非有应对计划和关键的联系部门和战略，但这些计划和战略已经陷入困境。一些人认为，责任在于国家本身，以及据称国家干旱风险治理不力，影响了干旱后的恢复，特别是农业部门的恢复。鉴于干旱是一个常见的特征，而且过去在机构应对方面曾有过几次成功的案例，因此，无效的应对措施令人惊讶。
South Africa is prone to drought. The country recently experienced the combined effects of a severe drought and a strong El Nino event, which led to serious impacts on livelihood conditions and economic growth. By examining the State's response to drought over time, with a specific focus on responses to the current 2016 El Nino -related drought, we expose a number of 'sticking points' in the response to drought and the delayed action to reduce the risks to drought impacts. Complex and seemingly bureaucratic hurdles limiting action are shown to be cumbersome factors that impede and continue to frustrate effective drought response in the country. Such bureaucratic inability to enable swift and flexible responses resulted in many NGOs and civic actors stepping up to provide assistance. As demonstrated in this research, while there are response plans and key contact departments and strategies in South Africa, these have become mired down in officialdom. Some suggest the blame lies with the State itself, and its alleged poor drought risk governance that affect recovery after drought, especially in the agricultural sector. Ineffective responses are surprising given that drought is a familiar feature and given there have been several previous cases of successes in institutional response in the past.