• The 2nd edition of South Africa Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Atlas (SARVA) which is also complemented by an updated online portal was finalised in 2019 and offers the following benefits:
   
  • Comprehensive resources which include live web mapping, static maps, reports, case studies and integrated analysis to support an enhanced understanding of climate change impacts and potential losses.
  • Almost 1 700 datasets that cover social, economic and environmental drivers. This allows for an integrated approach to societal change and resilience that is not limited to climate change aspects. The portal also allows easy access through advanced search functionalities to data on other platforms from different research institutes, such as the South African Spatial Data Infrastructure (SASDI), the Bioenergy Atlas, the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) and South African Earth Observation System of Systems (SAEOSS). Examples of how the atlas can be used to make decisions could be in deciding where new infrastructure should be built, or where certain crops will no longer be viable in future and thus to make contingency plans, or what key environmental or socio-economic risks a business will face in a certain area.

Currently in the process of developing/conducting the following:

• Baseline study for monitoring and evaluating the loss and damage from weather and climate disasters and the main objectives will be to:
   
  • Provide an understanding of comprehensive risk management approaches (assessment, reduction, transfer, retention), including social protection instruments and transformational approaches, in building long-term resilience; vulnerable populations and communities.
  • Mapping of Direct and indirect impacts (economic, social and environmental) of losses and damages from weather and climate disasters at national, provincial and local scale.
  • An assessment to identify disasters which can be attributed to climate change

• Developing a Level 1Disaster Management Plan for the National Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries A Level that focuses primarily on establishing foundation institutional arrangements for disaster risk management, putting in place contingency plans for responding to known priority threats as identified in the initial stages of the disaster risk assessment, identifying key governmental and other stakeholders, and developing the capability to generate a Level 2 Disaster Risk Management Plan.

Pre-emptive adaptation:

• National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (NAS) and the Socioeconomic Impact Assessment study – introduces measures to adapt to the effects of climate change and the cost of implementing this measures. The strategy builds on the progressive, innovative and proactive policies that we already have in place to deal with an ever-changing climate. It is guided by the overarching principle of sustainable development, which is the cornerstone of the country’s Vision 2030 contained in the National Development Plan. It also defines the country’s climate risks and vulnerabilities, charts how we can reduce these vulnerabilities and how we can turn them into opportunities to transform the economy, strengthen and build a climate-resilient society.
   
• Roll-out of the Greenbook Programme to the country’s district municipalities: the programme is a collaboration between the National Disaster Management Centre, Santam which is private insurance company in the country and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa. The programme is developed as an online planning support tool to assist municipalities across South Africa to assess their risk and vulnerabilities, and respond by adapting settlements to climate change. It looks forwards to the year 2050 by projecting settlement growth combined with quantitative, scientific evidence of the likely impacts that climate change will have on South African towns and cities and its key resources. The tool provides a range of planning and design actions for municipalities to select from (based on their risk profile), to adapt their settlements to the likely impacts of climate change, to climate proof their settlements, and to reduce their exposure and vulnerability to hazards and thus the risk for disaster.

Contingency measures, e.g. through risk financing with regional risk pooling, insurance facilities and bonds, and through social protection measures, etc.:

• The Country has a National Contingency Plan which focuses on priority hazards such as, but not limited to floods; veldfires; decease outbreak; sinkhole formations and Windstorms (which includes Tornadoes, Hail). The national contingency plan is a culmination of a consolidation of provincial contingency plans as submitted to the National Disaster Management Centre where roles and responsibilities of all role players clearly outlined. It is developed based on the contingency plans from provinces and organs of state. The national contingency plan outlines government's integrated and coordinated responses to disaster threatening incidences and spells out how government will marshal its resources; channel the efforts of voluntary agencies; private role players and solicit assistance from outside of the affected areas if necessary.

Addressing losses through disaster relief funds, credit facilities etc.:

• Two broad categories exist within the South African legislative environment that addresses issues of disaster relief. These are social relief for individuals and social relief for community. Government provides community relief during community wide disaster situations (such as flooding and fires) that have caused excessive damage to both personal property and livelihood. The funding for community social relief has two main sources namely: 
  • General Government funds collected through taxation
  • Fund raising activities in terms of the Fund-Raising Act 107 of 1978
  • The Disaster Relief Fund; South African Defense Force Fund; Refugee Relief Fund; State Presidents Fund; and the Social Relief Fund.
• The Disaster Relief Fund renders assistance to any person that has suffered damages or loss caused by disaster. Importantly, a Board appointed by the Minister manages the fund. It is the responsibility of the Board to ensure that assistance is rendered where deemed necessary.
• Public Finance Management Act No. 1 of 1999 (PFMA) which governs the release of funds for disaster events. Sections 16 and 25 allow the Minister of Finance or MEC to appropriate funds from their revenue funds for use of emergency situations (which in this case can mean disasters). Although there is some limitation that the fund may not exceed certain percentage of the total amount appropriated in the annual budget.
• Municipal Finance Management Act No. 56 of 2003, (MFMA) section 29 allows the mayor of a municipality to authorise unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure in emergency situations (in this instance can mean disasters). Such expenditure must be appropriated in the adjustment budget within 60 days, if not passed within those days after the expenditure was incurred, the expenditure is unauthorised. Again, this also restricts the amount of funds available to respond to emergencies to some prescribed percentage of the budget.
• Amended Municipal Systems Act, 2000, section 10 states that the Cabinet member, MEC or other organ of the state initiating an assignment of a function or power to a municipality in terms of sections 9 and 10, must make appropriate steps to ensure that sufficient funding is available and capacity building initiatives are available for the performance of such assigned function. This is especially so (for disaster risk management) as the assignment for the function or power imposes duty on municipality and that duty falls outside the functional areas as listed and discussed above for Schedule 4B and 5B of the Constitution.

Disaster risk reduction focused strategies and measures through activities under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, contingency and trust funds, disaster legislation, etc.:

• The National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) is established as a Presidential assigned function to a Cabinet Member. This function is coordinated through the implementation of the Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act no 57 of 2002) as amended, as well as the accompanying Disaster Management Framework, 2005 across the three spheres of government. The NDMC also administers fire legislation (Fire Brigade Services Act, 1987). The main objective of the National Centre is to promote an integrated and coordinated system of disaster management, with special emphasis on prevention and mitigation by national, provincial and municipal organs of state, statutory functionaries, other role-players involved in disaster management and communities.
• Disaster Management Amendment Act 2015 (Act no 16 of 2015).
• The national disaster management centre has set up two emergency funding, namely Provincial Disaster Grant and Municipal Disaster Grant.

 Transformative actions (which could include any such actions already mentioned above):

• The roll-out of the Greenbook Programme to the country’s district municipalities: the programme is a collaboration between the National Disaster Management Centre, Santam which is private insurance company in the country and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa.
• Currently there are two broad categories that exist within the South African legislative environment that addresses issues of disaster relief. These are social relief for individuals and social relief for community. Government provides community relief during community wide disaster situations (such as flooding and fires) that have caused excessive damage to both personal property and livelihood. The funding for community social relief has two main sources namely: 
• General Government funds collected through taxation; and

• Fund raising activities in terms of the Fund-Raising Act 107 of 1978.
• The Disaster Relief Fund; South African Defens Force Fund; Refugee Relief Fund; State Presidents Fund; and the Social Relief Fund.
• The Disaster Relief Fund renders assistance to any person that has suffered damages or loss caused by disaster. Importantly, a Board appointed by the Minister manages the fund. It is the responsibility of the Board to ensure that assistance is rendered where deemed necessary.

No.

Collection and management of data and information (including databases, spatial data, systematic observations, establishing baselines, etc):

• Reconstruction of historical climate databases including data rescue from old paper records to support climate information services.
• Establishment of a baseline on non-economic and social loss and damage, as well as regarding culture, territory, indigenous knowledge systems, ecosystem services.

Analyses of data and information (including climate change projections, impact analyses, hazard mapping, etc):

• Conduct of pilot loss and damage assessments for certain key agricultural commodities which are vulnerable to climate change, such as rice, aquaculture, and fruits.
• Construction of multivariate impacts and loss databases to support assessments and reporting including through the use of bigdata methods.
• Design of shared database systems to support different ministries and other stakeholders in the country including data collection, storage and sharing protocols and policies.
• Costing of impacts in the present as well as for projected impacts for use in costs-benefit analyses to appraise options.
• Methods for automated and semi-automated inventorying of infrastructure and assets such as involving geospatial technologies and artificial intelligence.

Design and implementation of projects on Loss and Damage:

• Setting up cross-ministerial/sectoral coordination mechanism for the dissemination and linking warnings with early action, and the deployment of emergency assistance for communities.
• Development of alternative livelihood programs, livelihood transformation programs, and vocational training for coastal communities and other at-risk population groups.
• Design of proposals and access to financing for climate information services and early warning systems under the GCF and other funding channels.
• Optimal design of sustainable public works (drainage, transportation and other critical and protective infrastructure).

 Financial instruments (such as insurance, risk pooling, contingency funds, etc):

• Design of combinations of appropriate risk finance tools and instruments applicable to a specific country context and vulnerable groups.
  Development and deployment of forecast-based finance instruments to minimize potential losses to productive systems.
• Development of regional finance instruments (regional risk facilities, etc).
  Development of curriculum on various relevant aspects of climate change and loss and damage.

Other activities not covered by the above entries:

• Catastrophic risk models as part of disaster risk assessments are needed to assess the number of people that are likely to be homeless and the number of buildings that will have to be rebuilt. In the case of reconstruction operations, disaster risk modelling techniques can be used to estimate the potential damage to the infrastructure, as well as to any public and private property. This can help the authorities determine the budgetary needs caused by any such potentially catastrophic events.
• Development and regulation of domestic insurance markets including the introduction of innovative market based financing of disaster relief and recovery such as sovereign insurance, risk pooling, reinsurance, index-based insurance, weather derivatives, micro insurance, and catastrophe bonds, should be investigated.

Baseline study for monitoring and evaluating the loss and damage from weather and climate disasters and the main objectives will be to:

• Provide an understanding of comprehensive risk management approaches (assessment, reduction, transfer, retention), including social protection instruments and transformational approaches, in building long-term resilience; vulnerable populations and communities.
• Mapping of Direct and indirect impacts (economic, social and environmental) of losses and damages from weather and climate disasters at national, provincial and local scale.
• An assessment to identify disasters which can be attributed to climate change.