Disaster mortalities and the Sendai Framework Target A: Insights from Zimbabwe

In many parts of the world, human losses to disasters have been on the increase during the past three decades. This has slowed down the human development process. In an attempt to curb disaster impact, the world adopted an action-oriented Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) in 2015. Target A of the SFDRR seeks to substantially reduce disaster mortalities by 2030. This study contributes to the SFDRR by bringing in disaster-disaggregated mortality data to assess the progress of Zimbabwe’s commitment in attaining Target A. The data came from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe, the Department of Civil Protection and the EM-DAT database. To analyse the data, we conducted 3-year and 5-year moving averages for a period of thirty years to frame a holistic picture of the disaster mortalities in Zimbabwe. We also applied the methodology developed by the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group to determine the mortality rates for the overall and individual disaster type. Results clearly showed that Zimbabwe is making progress in reducing disaster mortalities despite a few spikes across its range of disasters. Major deaths were caused by drought, diarrhoea, malaria and tropical cyclones. Therefore, Zimbabwe needs to invest in drought monitoring and mitigation, cyclone forecasting and early warnings, and the surveillance and prevention of diarrhoeal diseases and malaria in order to substantially reduce the disaster mortality by the year 2030.