Disaster and Risks Management
Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and emergency response are critical components of resilient development across Southern and East Africa, a region exposed to recurring droughts, floods, cyclones, and complex humanitarian emergencies. RMI provides DRR research, humanitarian evaluation, and consulting services for OCHA, IFRC, WFP, UNICEF, bilateral donors, and national civil protection authorities.
Southern and East Africa faces escalating disaster risk driven by climate change, rapid urbanisation in hazard-prone areas, high poverty and food insecurity, and limited institutional capacity for disaster risk management. Cyclones Idai and Kenneth (2019), prolonged regional droughts, and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the region’s deep vulnerability to compounding shocks and the critical importance of preparedness, early warning systems, and coordinated humanitarian response.
RMI provides the following consulting services to regional bodies, UN agencies, donors, INGOs, NGOs, and government ministries:
- Rapid Needs Assessments (RNA) in emergency settings
- Multi-sector needs assessments (MSNA) following OCHA standards
- Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNA)
- Early warning system effectiveness assessments
- Humanitarian programme evaluations (OECD-DAC + ALNAP standards)
- Real-Time Evaluations (RTE) during emergency response
- Community disaster risk assessments
- Post-distribution monitoring for emergency assistance
- DRR capacity assessments for local authorities
- Sendai Framework progress reporting support
- Contingency planning and simulation exercise facilitation
