A South African disaster legislative perspective of information management and communication systems

South African Journal of Information Management

 
 
Field Value
 
Title A South African disaster legislative perspective of information management and communication systems
 
Creator Kunguma, Olivia
 
Subject Sociology; Law disaster communication; information management; disaster governance; disaster legislation; Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR); data
Description Background: Establishing a disaster information management and communication system (IMCS) is a mandate of the South African National Disaster Management Framework of 2005 (NDMF). The inception of such systems is supposed to be at the initial set-up of disaster management centres. The comprehensive functioning of a disaster centre will require an interoperable system that can collect, process, store and disseminate data. The lack of such a system might result in poor disaster risk reduction (DRR) and ineffective response.Objective: This article identified and described IMCSs from the South African disaster policy perspective.Methods: Qualitative in-depth interviews were used to investigate the status quo of all nine provincial disaster management centres (PDMCs) regarding the existence, functioning and understanding of IMCSs. The NDMF informed the interview questions administered to 29 purposively selected participants. Themes from descriptions by informants were used to analyse the data.Results: All the centres operating for more than 10 years lack integrated IMCSs. The disaster managers perceive IMCSs as more information technology, computers and other physical devices and less human input systems and governance capabilities. The lack of integrated and well-governed disaster information and communication affects disaster management operations and service delivery mandate.Conclusion: To date, no studies have explored the establishment and management of interoperable IMCSs in disaster management centres. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature on disaster information and communication discourse and practical contributions to improve the capacity of PDMCs. This article provides insight into the significance of IMCS for building resilient communities and recommendations for establishing and maintaining the systems.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2022-10-18
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Survey/Interview
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajim.v24i1.1540
 
Source SA Journal of Information Management; Vol 24, No 1 (2022); 9 pages 1560-683X 2078-1865
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1540/2251 https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1540/2252 https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1540/2253 https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1540/2254
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Olivia Kunguma https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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