When Disasters Strike, Not Everyone Gets the Warning

Southern Africa is one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions. Cyclones batter the coasts of Mozambique and Madagascar. Floods submerge communities in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Droughts wipe out harvests across Zambia and Zimbabwe year after year. The human cost is enormous — but it is not equally shared.

When Tropical Cyclone Idai struck Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi in March 2019, it killed more than 1,300 people and affected over three million others. Four years later, Cyclone Freddy — the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded — killed more than 1,400 people in Malawi and Mozambique alone, becoming the deadliest storm in Southern Africa’s recorded history. Behind these headline numbers lie deeper inequalities: the people most likely to die, lose everything, and be left out of recovery programmes are persons with disabilities, women, the elderly, and informal workers with no safety nets.

Research consistently shows that persons with disabilities are two to four times more likely to die in a disaster than non-disabled people. This is not because disability makes people less capable. It is because disaster management systems are built without them in mind. Early warning messages are broadcast on radio, in visual formats, or through channels that exclude people who are deaf, blind, or have cognitive impairments. Evacuation routes and shelters are inaccessible. Relief distributions overlook specific needs. Recovery planning rarely involves disabled people at the table.

The Global Framework — And the Gap Between Policy and Practice

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030) is the world’s blueprint for reducing disaster losses. It sets seven global targets, including reducing disaster mortality and the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies. Critically, Sendai explicitly calls for disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which most SADC countries have ratified, reinforces this obligation.

On paper, the commitments are strong. In practice, implementation across Southern Africa remains weak. National disaster plans rarely include specific provisions for persons with disabilities. Local government structures lack the resources or training to deliver inclusive responses. Community-level disaster preparedness — where life-saving decisions are actually made — is often the weakest link in the chain.

The Sendai Framework’s progress reviews have flagged this gap repeatedly. As of 2023, fewer than 40% of low- and middle-income countries had disability-inclusive DRR strategies. In Southern Africa, the figure is lower still. Research conducted by organisations like the Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD) has documented the systematic exclusion of persons with disabilities from DRR planning at both national and community levels.

Southern Africa’s Particular Challenges

The disaster risk landscape in Southern Africa is shaped by a specific set of pressures. Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense. The 2019–2020 drought was one of the worst in living memory across Zambia, Zimbabwe, and parts of Mozambique. The 2023–2024 El Niño event pushed millions into food insecurity. Governments are responding under severe fiscal constraints, with limited budgets and stretched institutions.

At the same time, disability data in the region remains poor. Without reliable figures on where people with disabilities live, what their impairments are, and what their specific needs might be in an emergency, it is almost impossible to design a response that reaches them. Civil registration systems in most SADC countries do not systematically capture disability status. Household surveys use inconsistent definitions. The result is a data blind spot at exactly the moment when precision matters most.

There is also a coordination problem. Disaster response typically involves government ministries, UN agencies, international NGOs, and local civil society organisations — each with different priorities, mandates, and accountability structures. Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) are frequently excluded from humanitarian coordination clusters, even though they hold the most direct knowledge of what their members need.

Progress Being Made

There have been genuine wins. The Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action, launched in 2016 and now endorsed by hundreds of organisations globally, has shifted the language and expectations around inclusive humanitarian response. The African Disability Protocol, adopted by the African Union in 2018, is being progressively ratified by member states and includes specific provisions on disaster risk.

SAFOD and its national member organisations have been at the forefront of advocacy in Southern Africa, successfully pushing for disability representation in national DRR platforms in Zambia and Zimbabwe. ActionAid and other NGOs have piloted community-based inclusive DRR models in Malawi that integrate persons with disabilities into local early warning committees. These models are showing results — but they are small in scale and fragile in funding.

What We Do

• Conduct regional assessments of Sendai Framework implementation, with a specific focus on disability inclusion in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique.
• Develop accessibility methodologies for evaluating early warning systems, evacuation plans, and post-disaster recovery programmes.
• Work with DPOs, government ministries, and humanitarian agencies to close the gap between DRR policy commitments and actual practice.
• Produce evidence-based advocacy materials that help national governments and regional bodies prioritise inclusive DRR in budgets and legislation.
• Build the capacity of local researchers and civil society organisations to collect disability-disaggregated data in disaster-affected communities.
• Support the development of community-level DRR tools that are accessible to persons with a range of impairments.