Participants at a workshop organised by UNDRR and ICLEI for cyclone affected cities in southern Africa

By Isabel Njihia

NAIROBI, 17 February, 2020 - Six cyclone-affected cities in southern Africa are joining together to develop the so-called Fortitude Initiative to build their resilience to the climate emergency following last year’s catastrophic South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season.

Representatives from the cyclone affected cities of Beira and Pemba, Mozambique; Blantyre and Zomba, Malawi: and Mutare and Chipinge, Zimbabwe, convened for the first time in December to discuss lessons learned from their experience of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth

The region was first hit in March by Cyclone Idai which left more than 1,300 people dead and many more missing. Idai brought strong winds and flooding which affected an estimated three million people.

The brunt of the storm was felt by Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Madagascar with estimated economic losses of US$2.2 billion, making it the one of the costliest storms ever to hit Africa.

Infrastructure damage in the affected cities and towns was estimated at $1 billion including destruction of hospitals, schools, housing and industrial facilities.

Further loss of life, displacement and economic damage was inflicted the following month by Cyclone Kenneth.

All of this brought representatives of the six cities together in Cape Town in December, on the occasion of marking World Tsunami Awareness Day, to discuss their exposure and vulnerability to disasters with a particular focus on reducing damage to critical infrastructure, target (d) of the Sendai Framework, the global plan to reduce disaster losses.

By the year 2030, an estimated 50 per cent of the world's population will live in coastal areas exposed to flooding, storms and tsunamis as sea-levels continue to rise.

UNDRR Regional Office for Africa and ICLEI Africa co-organized the two-day workshop “Building Resilience at the Local Level” in Cape Town, South Africa on 11 – 12 December 2019.

The developing Fortitude Initiative seeks to build climate resilience at the local level by supporting towns, cities, municipalities and regions to strengthen their disaster risk reduction strategies and action plans with a view to meeting the 2020 deadline for having such strategies in placed as agreed in a key target of the Sendai Framework.