When crises start to bite…. We’ve all experienced the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the news now from France is a clamp down on swimming pools because of water shortages. For those of us in the Global North that sounds like it’s impinging upon comfortable lifestyles (which not everyone enjoys). Imagine water shortages that don’t just affect lifestyles but livelihoods and lives.

What happens if you then add into the mix regular disruptions to electricity supply? Maybe many on this platform first think about their Teams/Zoom meetings and dependency on electricity for knowledge working. What about it affecting your source of income, food supplies and food storage?

I confess I hadn’t heard of load shedding until last week when preparing to join an event online in South Africa. My presentation (on Triple Access Planning) this morning was pushed back because of it. According to this article (https://lnkd.in/efYyFpq9) “Millions of people are without lights every day – sometimes for up to 10 hours – in cities and towns across South Africa”. Loadshedding is the rationing of electicity supply (you can read about South Africa’s energy crisis here: https://lnkd.in/ePSmUcjq).

Add to an enegy crisis a water crisis. “Between 2015 and 2018, Cape Town endured a one-in-400 year drought which took the city of around 4.6 million residents to the brink of “day zero,” a point when Cape Town would run out of water”. Let that sink in. (https://lnkd.in/egccAHzG).

I’m reminded here again of how preoccupied we can become with ourselves in the Global North (with its own social inequalities) with little regard to being informed about those in the Global South or to learning from each other. Necessity is the mother of invention so perhaps necessity is now forcing the hand of strategic planning – we plainly need Decide and Provide and we need to get our acts together on the Provide – it needs to be innovative, bold and adaptive because – whether North or South – it seems crises are not solitary phenomena but increasingly travelling in packs.

#loadshedding#crises#decideandprovide#tripleaccessplanning#adaptiveplanning#boldleadership