Dr. Mmaphaka Ephraim Tau is currently the Deputy Director-General (Head): National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) since 01 January 2017. Until 31 December 2016, Dr Tau was Deputy Director-General responsible for Forestry and Natural Resources Management in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
He is in possession of Bachelor of Arts majoring in Geography and English (obtained in 1995), Higher Education Diploma (obtained in 1996), Honours in Development Studies (obtain in 1997) all from the University of Limpopo. He also holds Masters in Development Studies (obtained in 2003) from the University of South Africa as well as a Masters in Disaster Management (obtained in 2008) from the University of the Free State. During 2014, Dr. Tau obtained a Philosophiae Doctorate in Development and Management through the North West University on the topic: An Institutional Model for Collaborative Disaster Risk Management in the SADC.
Dr. Tau has already presented the outcomes of his research in two international forums, viz: the Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimise Educational Development (ANDROID) held in Media City in the UK during September 2014 and the second biennial conference of the Southern African Society for Disaster reduction held in Windhoek, Namibia during October 2014. He has also published an article in the Journal for Disaster Risk Science on his thesis.
His professional involvement includes the following forums:
- A founding member and Advisory Committee Member (ACM) of the Jamba journal for Disaster Studies;
- A co-author of the Risk and Development Review (RaDAR) publication;
- An Advisory Board Member (ABM) of Stenden South Africa University: Department of Disaster Management;
- Founding member of the Southern African Society for Disaster Reduction (SASDiR), and;
- A founding team member of the UNIVEN and DCOG collaboration on programme development on disaster risk sciences which forms part of the conference.
As head of the National Disaster Management Centre, Dr Tau is entrusted with the responsibility to coordinate implementation of Disaster Management in the country and contributing to the global disaster risk reduction agenda.