Zimbabwe’s Preparedness to Manage Meteorological Disasters as Informed By Disaster Risk Management

Climate change adaptation and building resilience among vulnerable communities can leverage on adoption of broader principles of Disaster Risk Management. In recent years many developing countries have seen an increasing push to merge Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) approaches into a single framework because many of the tools developed by the disaster risk management (DRM) community, such as risk identification and preparedness are important to climate resilient development. The study sought to establish Zimbabwe’s preparedness in managing meteorological disasters; mitigating climate change impacts using disaster risk management strategies; and to provide recommendations to help improve disaster preparedness in vulnerable communities in Masvingo province. Treating climate change as a natural disaster have far reaching positive results in dealing with climate change challenges in the country and beyond. One innovation adopted in this study is the use of an Android App to provide early warnings and other remedies after a disaster has struck. Given the wide use of Information technology products in Zimbabwe, minimum use of this App in managing climate change related disasters has shown it has potential to be effective especially for urban to peri-urban communities.