Opening a three-day regional MESA workshop, De Graaff said the African continent especially the SADC region was vulnerable to many of the climate related environmental problems. MESA will therefore provide capacity to monitor the minimisation of the impact and effects of environmental disasters.
MESA, launched by Southern African Development Community (SADC), is an initiative between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) to monitor the state of the environment and it contributes to the Joint Africa-EU Strategy on Climate change and environment. De Graaff noted that the environmental problems are due to the fact that large shares of its economics and the people depend on the climate-sensitive activities such as agriculture stressing that in the last 30 years, 70% of the worst drought disasters in the world took place in the sub-Saharan region. “It is predicted that the world can expect more frequent extreme climate-related events such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones and wildfires which may disrupt food production and water supplies that calls for intervention at the earliest,” he said. De Graaff said with the flood mortality risk is still increasing consistently in Africa despite a downward global trend, it was important to come up with solutions that will prepare countries for the impact and effects.
