When Tropical Cyclone Freddy hit the country, many people lived in areas where local government had advised were flood prone, but they still lived there and even contested relocation because they didn’t have confidence in what authorities were telling them.
Now that is to change following a significant and innovative initiative to apply and use High Resolution Three-Dimensional (HR3D) Geospatial Data a partnership between the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
Among others, the initiative is aimed at strengthening Malawi’s capacity to manage and respond to disasters more effectively with components such as enhancing early warning systems, improving disaster response coordination, and increasing community resilience through targeted training and infrastructure development.
US Charge D’ Affaires Amy Diaz said the development gives confidence to the data and integrity to the decision making processes to be made by relevant authorities.
She described it as her top priority following the devastation and impact caused by Cyclone Freddy and after noting some members of her mission lost family members hence thought of giving tools to Malawi to prevent such disasters from recurring.
With the North Carolina National Guard supporting Malawi in the coming months, there will be crisis management exercises as North Carolina prepares for Hurricane season with members of DoDMA, MDF participating to enable them be part of the planning and identifying gaps which may need assistance from partners.
“What we want to do is to give Malawi cutting edge tools it deserves and when you tell people that they have to move away from the Lake; we want you to be able to show a map showing that water will flood there or that mudslides will happen on the hills that they built their homes or where we shouldn’t pave roads or build schools because they’re likely to fall apart due to flood prone areas.
“And now with this data you have science to show you where you can make investments, where you need to relocate Malawians to safety and where you need to maybe build better infrastructure because people can still live there but they gonna need more support and that’s what this data will tell you because no one will be guessing anymore. They’ll be able to look at the data and extrapolate from it the planning that needs to happen”.
Commissioner for the Department of Disaster management affairs Charles Kalemba spoke on how this aligns with the new law which gives the Department the powers to relocate people with the backing of the data.
“If somebody challenges us in court, we will defend ourselves using the data. So our decisions will not be baseless; these decisions are informed decisions, are from scientific facts and therefore even in a court of law we will be able to defend ourselves for the decisions that we made. Now because of that, the new law has given us power to forcefully evacuate people where need be”
As more data analytics and geospatial technology comes to Malawi, more Malawians can use it effectively and private businesses, farmers, city planners local councils will look at it and make smart decisions on how to protect Malawians, families and invest in businesses.
The US Embassy agreed with government to donate the information to universities across Malawi and it will be housed at the University of Malawi, Malawi University of Business and applied sciences, Malawi University of sciences and technology, and Mzuzu University as it will be available to researchers and students.
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