Disaster management: a case study of the South African COVID-19 policy governance response.

Abstract

Recently the number of disasters has been increasing, with South Africa experiencing various kinds of disasters, such as floods, droughts, fires, landslides, and storms. Vulnerable communities are exposed to extreme property and income loss risks, death, disease, homelessness, displacement, misery for many people, and colossal material damage. To prevent and mitigate disasters, international and local communities must formulate disaster risk reduction policies to build sustainability and resilience. Governments and other relevant partners in the disaster management department must develop appropriate policies that effectively provide responsive measures for disaster mitigation, decreasing threats to the vulnerable. The most recent disaster is the COVID-19 pandemic which required disaster management initiatives to be used by the South African government. This study aims to understand the disaster management of the COVID-19 policy response within South Africa through the Disaster Management Act of 2002. The disaster management act was developed to provide measures and practices to prevent and mitigate the risk of occurrence and the disaster impact. The Act also establishes and facilitates disaster management in national, provincial, and municipal governments. The preliminary literature of the study outlined and discussed disaster management policies internationally, including United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in 2000 and the Third UN Global Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction: Sendai Framework 2015-2030. The literature shows South African legislation, like the White Paper on disaster management 1998 and Disaster Management Act 2002. The existence of disaster legislation in South Africa proved to be essential for the COVID-19 Policy response. This study adopted a qualitative case study approach as a research paradigm. It was conducted as a desktop study using secondary sources of information. Academic journals, government publications, and books were used to support the investigation. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyse data from the text thoroughly. A governance theory was used to investigate the practice of good governance, such as the rule of law, effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and accountability during a disaster. Despite good governance challenges, the study concluded that governance was practiced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.