Writing in downtoearth.org.in, Kiran Pandey says that, while internal displacement in Africa has tripled in 15 years amid a spate of conflict and violence, there’s a six-fold increase in the number of internally displaced people whose lives have been disrupted by disasters, according to a new report.
The report, released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) noted that the number of people living in internal displacement as a result of conflict and violence in Africa has increased from 10.2 million in 2009 to 32.5 million in 2023.
However, in comparison, the displacements caused by disasters have risen more sharply, increasing nearly six-fold between 2009 and 2023. The number of times people were forced to flee disasters each year increased from 1.1 million displacements in 2009 to 6.3 million in 2023.
This surge in 15 years is largely driven by climate-related events such as floods and droughts, highlighting the growing impact of environmental disasters on displacement patterns across the continent.
Flooding, which impacts every region of the continent, is responsible for over 75 per cent of these displacements, while droughts contribute to an additional 11 per cent.
For example, 69 per cent of the disaster-displacements in eastern Africa were due to floods.
Most of those have taken place during the Gu season between March and May, and the Deyr season between October and December.
In western Africa, floods accounted for 99 per cent of disaster-displacements. Most of such displacements occurred between June and September. Such trends revealed in the report call for an effective preparedness plan to deal with such events, during the rainy season. These include early warning, land use planning and water management.
Climate change is making weather-related hazards more frequent and more intense, acknowledged the IDMC.
This has also been evident from the climate attribution studies published by the World Weather Attribution in recent years. It is also amplifying other factors that make communities more vulnerable to disaster displacement, increasing the risk of future movements.
Nigeria reported the highest number of displaced people, totalling 8.7 million, with nearly three-quarters affected by two significant floods in 2012 and 2022. These events accounted for over 70 per cent of all flood-related displacements in the country.
According to the report, two cyclones—IDAI and FREDDY—were the most significant disaster-related displacement events in Africa over the past 15 years, impacting communities in Southern Africa.
The displacement trends over the past 15 years highlight the urgent need for effective implementation of conventions and policies at the regional level.
In 2009, the African Union adopted the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa which is also known as the Kampala Convention.
This was the first—and remains the only—legally binding regional instrument that addresses all causes and phases of displacement. It demonstrates the commitment of African nations to tackle the issue and set international standards for its management.
Sobering thoughts indeed concerning our continent and climate change.
For those of you who may have heard of, and been wondering about the bugs in the encryption algorithms used to secure emergency radio communications, urgentcomm.com says that the algorithms will now soon be released to the public domain, with the aim of encouraging code review and bug hunting.
The news comes after multiple vulnerabilities were found in TETRA, short for Terrestrial Trunked Radio, which is a radio voice and data standard mainly used by emergency services, such as police, fire brigade, and military, as well as in some industrial environments. The bugs were found by Midnight Blue Labs earlier this year, and the research was presented at Black Hat USA, showcasing additional zero-day vulnerabilities that could allow anyone to spy on or manipulate transmissions.
This decision to go public is a complete 180-degree turn for standard-maintainer ETSI, which originally pushed back against any claims of vulnerabilities within TETRA when they were initially found, claiming that the work to enhance the standard was already underway.
Since then, a technical committee overseeing the TETRA standard met in October to decide on making the algorithms open to the public. Ultimately, the group came to a unanimous decision to make all of the TETRA Air Interface cryptographic algorithms open-source.
With a bit of luck, the clever fellows or girls will find the bugs, fix them, and thereafter ensure safe and intact emergency comms using TETRA!
Writing on his own blog, gadgeteer.co.za, Danie ZS1OSS refers to the FCC authorization to be given to a wireless cell carrier to connect directly with Starlink satellites, and says that satellite connectivity on smartphones can be an incredibly important safety feature, and both phone makers and carriers are working to expand its availability. Now, Starlink’s direct-to-cell service that will be used by T-Mobile has FCC approval.
Danie says further: “The big promise of direct-to-cell satellite service is that you will be able to connect to a satellite just like you currently connect to a cell tower, with your current smartphone, whenever you find yourself in a dead spot. It’s like putting a cell tower in space that you can access at all times.
“So, this is actually a huge event. Any ordinary cell-phone user, stuck in some rural area (or at sea) where these satellites have coverage, could establish communications as if there was a cell-phone tower in range.
“It will be very interesting to see how these pan out in terms of more congested areas, and how operating costs compare. I’m thinking too here of some of the extreme electricity load shedding that South Africa experienced, where cell towers had no grid power for up to 6 hours at a time. South African operators have also had very expensive backup batteries stolen on a regular basis from their terrestrial sites.
“When one factors all this in, how do a few satellite units compare? Even for rural communications, due to the reach of the towers, how many towers and interconnectivity infrastructures are required to cover a 200 square kilometre area vs by satellite?” Good Question!
Thanks for the comments, Danie, and for permission to use the report.
This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.