ADF

Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma is the fourth president of Sierra Leone. This is an edited and condensed version of an address he gave on May 8, 2013, at an event celebrating the launch of the National Disaster Response Trust Fund at the Miatta Conference Centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. We live in a global village, and we are part and parcel of the benefits and challenges inherent in our membership of the global community. A major global challenge today is managing disasters, which are becoming increasingly common. Actions in one part of the globe may cause disasters in another region,…

VOICE OF AMERICA With Kenya’s proximity to the Great Rift, once a hotbed of volcanic activity, the country is the biggest producer of geothermal energy on the continent. Thirteen percent of the national grid is powered by this renewable energy, but untapped geothermal fields have the potential to meet all of Kenya’s power needs, and then some. Near the town of Naivasha, Isaac Kirimi, a drilling superintendent with KenGen, Kenya’s leading power company, walks up a steaming hillside. “This is like a live volcano,” he said. “You can easily convince someone you’re in hell.” More than 30 years after KenGen…

VOICE OF AMERICA Cameroon has been organizing collective marriages to formally unite couples, including some who have been together for 50 years without legal documentation. The change will protect the rights and property of women when their husbands die. Ninety percent of Cameroonians do not have legal marriage contracts. When a man dies, family members sometimes seize the couple’s joint property because the woman has no legal document to back her. Among those who got marriage certificates from Yaoundé City Council was Theordore Mehamere, 85. He still vividly remembers how he met his now 77-year-old wife, Mino Colette. “I was…

Nelson Mandela: July 18, 1918 — December 5, 2013 “Although it has come at the advanced age of 95, Madiba’s death will create a huge vacuum that will be difficult to fill in our continent. He will be sorely missed by all who cherish love, peace and freedom the world over.” — Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan “Like a most precious diamond honed deep beneath the surface of the earth, the Madiba who emerged from prison in January 1990 was virtually flawless. … Instead of calling for his pound of flesh, he proclaimed the message of forgiveness and reconciliation, inspiring others…

Understanding the Cycles of Emergency Management Can Lessen the Impact of Disasters ADF STAFF Malawi’s hunger season lasts from August through March, and it has lengthened in recent years. Deforestation and climate change have disrupted rain cycles. This stresses the nation’s Southern Region, where poverty is concentrated. But about 200,000 people in eight districts have adapted their livelihoods and changed agricultural practices to heighten resilience against extended dry spells. With help from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Malawians are learning conservation techniques to get the most from their land. They plant trees to hold water in the soil.…

Mobile phones and websites offer affordable options to keep information flowing before and after disaster ADF STAFF Catastrophe struck Kenya in late 2007 and early 2008. But the disaster wasn’t a flood, famine or earthquake. Protests in the wake of a closely contested presidential election quickly degenerated into widespread violence that resulted in 1,200 deaths, more than 300,000 displaced people, and 42,000 houses and businesses looted or destroyed. In response to the crisis, a new technological tool was born. It shows that high-tech methods of preparing for and responding to disasters do not need to be complex or expensive. The…

Uganda’s National Emergency Coordination and Operations Centre Offers a Model ADF STAFF In July 2013, three earthquakes shook Uganda’s Lake Albert region. The tremors caused minimal damage but reminded the country’s disaster response officials that they needed to be prepared for the big one, should it ever hit. “It was an early warning; it was a wake-up call, and it really activated us to check our capabilities,” said Maj. Gen. Julius Oketta, director of the country’s National Emergency Coordination and Operations Centre (NECOC). “And we found that yes, if it had happened, we didn’t have the adequate capability.” In response,…

Brig. Gen. Lawrence Smith is the general officer commanding the 43rd South African Brigade of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in the United States and of the PLA National Defense University of China. His past assignments included two stints in Burundi as commander of the South African peacekeeping forces, 15 months in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the section commander in the east, and commander of the Southern African Development Community Standby Force. In July and August 2013, he served as…

Joint Training at Shared Accord 13 Strengthens Two Infantries Before daybreak, a convoy of vehicles bumped down a dirt track pocked with deep ruts and termite mounds in the South African veld. The convoy included U.S. Humvees and South African armored personnel vehicles called Casspirs and Mambas. With a temperature of 6 degrees Celsius and a whipping wind, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) infantrymen pulled on their gloves and wore knit caps under their Kevlar helmets. The morning training lane –– one of the first in a two-week bilateral exercise known as Shared Accord –– was called “movement…

A Humanitarian Event Offers Free Medical Care to Civilians and Training for Soldiers From a distance, the crowd ringing the cricket stadium near Bhisho, South Africa, looked like fans queuing up for a big match. The festive atmosphere was amplified by Cynthia Bhadikazi Mnyande, an occupational health and safety supervisor from nearby Grey Hospital, who wore a multicolored cap and shouted words of encouragement through a megaphone. “Everyone will get in,” said Mnyande, who alternated between English and Xhosa. But these people, many of whom showed up as early as 6 a.m., were not there for sports; they were there…