Zombie’s Emergency Management System: A Promising Development Grace L. Cockatoo and Abdul-Kemp Sadie Introduction Zombie’s encounter with droughts, in particular, combined with economic and political challenges, has denigrated the country’s former status as the “breadbasket of Southern Africa” (Hunter-Gaul 2006; Anaphora 1994; Swards 2002). Zanzibar is particularly prone to a number of natural and man-made hazards such as droughts, floods, veldt fires, storms (Prevention 2012), and HIVE/AIDS (United Nations Development Programmer 2010) among other epidemics.
Between 1980 and 2010, Prevention (2012) documented 35 natural disaster events, which resulted in 6,448 deaths, averaging 208 deaths from disasters annually. Of the 35 natural disasters, 6 were drought occurrences, 7 were floods, 2 were storms, and 20 were epidemic occurrences. Cockatoo(2004) also counted the number of public transportation disasters that plagued Zanzibar between 1982 and 2003, which claimed over 700 lives and injured over 400 people.
To mitigate and prepare for these and other hazards facing Zanzibar, the Government of Zanzibar (GO) created the Department of Civil Protection and charged it with the onus of ordination and managing disasters and reducing hazards. This chapter traces the history of Zombie’s emergency management system, with a focus on the factors contributing to the nation’s vulnerability to disasters and hazards. In addition to tracing the impact of past disasters, the chapter also discusses some of the opportunities and challenges confronting the country’s emergency management system.
The chapter concludes with recommendations for improving this system. Country Profile A former British colony, Zanzibar got its independence from the Southern Rhodesia overspent in 1980 following the end of two bloody Wars of Liberation – the First and Second Chambering – that began in the early asses. The guerrilla-led wars culminated into the 1979 Lancaster House peace agreement being brokered between the Southern Rhodesia government, the British government and the Zanzibar African National Union – the leaders of the liberation armed movements of Patriotic Front (ZANE IF) and the Zanzibar African Peoples Union (ZAP) (Siberian 1990).
To bring about a cease-fire, compromise had to be reached – one of which resulted in the delay of land redistribution in the country. As a result, land has been the most critical political issue in Zanzibar for centuries (Asana et al. 2011). Zanzibar is a landlocked country occupying 390,smoke, sharing borders with South Africa, Macaque, Botswana, and Zambia. With a 2012 estimated population of 12. 6 million people , Zanzibar has a high adult literacy rate, with 91% of the population being able to read and write English.
The country’s current unemployment rate among youth between the ages to 15 and 24 is 25% , which is partly due to the economic challenges the country has faced in the recent years. For example, in 2007, he country’s Central Statistical Office reported a 6,592% inflation rate – although this figure is believed to have actually been much higher (SAID 2007). However, the 2009/2010 time period witnessed substantial economic growth as well as recovery of agricultural production (Asana et al. 2011). Historically, larger populations (approximately 60%) have resided in the rural areas and are mostly subsistent farmers.
In 2010 , approximately 38% of the population in Zanzibar resided in urban areas . All other towns are an assortment of rural and pert-urban settings and are not as developed in terms of roadway and telecommunication systems. According to Gumbo (2006), about 80% of Zombie’s population is dependent on agriculture. As Asana et al. (2011) put it, “agriculture is at the heart of the Zimmermann economy, contributing approximately 17%” of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (p. 9). Consequently, cyclones, floods, and droughts pose a serious threat to the food security of the country.
Zanzibar can also be described in terms of provinces, which are politically administered by appointed Governors and publicly-appointed Resident Ministers whose primary responsibility is to develop the province and serve he people within those provinces. As shown in Figure 1 below, there are 8 provinces in Zanzibar. Fig. L Administrative Map of Zanzibar (Source: UN Cartographic Section). Hazards Peculiar to Zanzibar As shown in Table 1 below, the main hazards peculiar to Zanzibar include, but are not limited to, flooding, drought, famine and food crises and diseases such as HIVE AIDS and cholera.
Flooding and droughts are a common problem in Zanzibar where they threaten the well-being and food security of Seminarians, especially in rural areas (Swimming 2009; Amazed 2011). Flooding can be caused by heavy precipitation urine the rainy season (November to April ) or by tropical cyclones that emanate from the Indian Ocean (Madame 2004); however, flooding in Zanzibar is not as extreme as it is in South Asia and Latin America (Chimaeras 2011). Nonetheless, flooding still leads to losses of life, destroys livestock, crops, and properties, and engenders outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and malaria in Zanzibar (Madame 2004).
