Integrated risk management for Africa

Coordinator: Latif LADID (University of Luxembourg, IPv6 Business Drivers, Luxembourg)

AGENCE NATIONALE DE REGLEMENTATIONDES TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MOROCCO
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE METEOROLOGIA, MOZAMBIQUE
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE GESTAO DE CALAMIDADES, MOZAMBIQUE
CENTRE DE SUIVI ECOLOGIQUE, SENEGAL
UNIVERSITE DE YAOUNDE I, CAMEROON
CENTRE ROYAL DE TELEDETECTION SPATIALE, MOROCCO
CSIR - COUNCIL FOR SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH, SOUTH AFRICA
UNIDADE TECNICA DE IMPLEMENTACAO DA POLITICA DE INFORMATICA, MOZAMBIQUE
SES ASTRA TECHCOM SA, LUXEMBOURG
THALES ALENIA SPACE FRANCE, FRANCE
SPACEBEL SA, BELGIUM
TECHNOLOGIES SANS FRONTIERES ASBL, LUXEMBOURG
STICHTING KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT BRABANT UNIVERSITEIT VAN TILBURG, NETHERLANDS
MINISTERE D'ETAT,  LUXEMBOURG
CISCO SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL B. V., NETHERLANDS
GROUPEMENT D'INTERET PUBLIC RESEAU NATIONAL DE TELECOMMUNICATIONS POUR LA TECHNOLOGIE, L'ENSEIGNEMENT ET LA RECHERCHE, FRANCE

Prof. Dr. Thomas Engel
University of Luxembourg
6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
L-1359 Luxembourg

Phone: +352 46 66 44 5263
Email: thomas.engel@uni.lu

The purpose of the project is to build a reference infrastructure and access-platform suitable for the management of natural and environmental risks in Africa. The measurable and verifiable objectives of the IRMA project are:

• To enhance the availability of communication services by use of all existing networks and by exploiting research results in the area of wireless ad-hoc networks,
• To integrate a wide range of information sources and services by deploying standardized geo-information infrastructure in support of several risk-management scenarios in Africa.

Disaster risk reduction policies and institutional mechanisms exist at various degrees of completeness in the African countries represented in the IRMA Consortium. Their effectiveness is however limited when dealing with major disasters and complex emergencies. Risk management is often limited to specific hazard monitoring with limited or no consideration of the vulnerabilities of the area at risk neither to the systemic nature and possible domino effect between risks of different kinds. It is the vulnerability of the population and or the infrastructure at risk that may transform a hazard into a major disaster.