Political will and institutional reform as enablers of coherent disaster and climate risk governance in SADC and beyond

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region remains highly susceptible to the escalating impacts of climate-induced hazards, as intensifying droughts, floods, cyclones, epidemics, and ecosystem degradation continue to threaten lives and livelihoods. This growing vulnerability highlights the urgent imperative to integrate disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) as complementary strategies for building resilience and securing sustainable development across the region. This study explores how political will and institutional reform serve as key enablers for overcoming the entrenched fragmentation that hampers DRR – CCA coherence. Employing a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design, it combines 14 qualitative interviews with senior officials in three SADC countries and a survey of 26 participants from nine member states. The findings reveal that political will is the decisive catalyst for integration, its absence perpetuates siloed governance, while its presence drives institutional realignment, financial coherence, and coordinated resilience outcomes. The study recommends elevating DRR – CCA integration to a cabinet-level governance priority, reframing it as a development and policy coherence agenda rather than a technical issue. Overall, the study underscores that political leadership and institutional reform are foundational to achieving systemic DRR – CCA coherence in the SADC region.