Abstract:

Natural disasters have affected Botswana with varying regularity and intensity. The United Nations General Assembly of 2005 (WCNDR) called upon all Governments to establish national platforms or focal points for disaster reduction, encouraging Governments to strengthen platforms were they already existed. In Botswana the National Committee on Disaster management and the National Disaster Management Technical Committee acts as the above platform. Disaster management is coordinated by the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) which is within the President’s Office. At village and district levels, disaster committees report to the NDMO. There is no legal instrument on disaster management in Botswana but the office of the President has overall responsibility for disaster management with disaster committees at all levels. The HFA outlined 5 key priority areas that international countries agreed to adopt to build better resilience of communities to national disasters. The progress reports show that Botswana is doing well with the country’s Disaster management policy providing guidelines for all the sectors and institutional levels to implement disaster preparedness and emergency response. However the lack of budget allocations means that the NDMO is under resourced and lacks the capacity to actively engage private sector community and non – governmental organizations. Where progress has been enormous such as the awareness campaigns and training programmes coordinated by the NDMO throughout the country, there has not been tools and sufficient resources to assess effectiveness. Overall Botswana has built a good foundation that can be continually improved on to build resilience towards natural disasters as well as reducing hazards and vulnerability; ultimately reducing the disaster risks.

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