‘Urgent action needed for countries in Southern Africa threatened by drought’

By Michael Charles

All countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are currently experiencing pockets of dryness.

Worryingly for the sub-region, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe have declared the state of emergencies due to looming drought. The United Nations Climate Action Summit scheduled for 23 September 2019 in New York, United States of America, presents a timely opportunity for urgent global discussions that will hopefully culminate in concrete, realistic plans to address the disproportionate impacts of climate change in developing countries.

Southern Africa is one of the regions most affected by serious impacts of climate-induced natural disasters. This year alone, a succession of cyclones and floods has already resulted in significant loss of life and assets in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and kept humanitarian organisations busy with emergency responses, as well as recovery and rebuilding efforts.

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Countries in the sub-region are acting to decrease their response times to calamities and improve their communities’ readiness to mitigate the impacts of natural disasters. Mozambique is the first country in Africa to have an Early Action Protocol approved; the protocol harnesses the power of forecast-based financing to ensure that humanitarian responses are more responsive and proactive. Malawi’s protocol is under review and Zambia’s is currently in development.

The need for humanitarian assistance in Southern Africa in the latter part of 2019 and into 2020 will be greater with the imminent drought. Notwithstanding ongoing local efforts to improve countries’ and communities’ disaster risk management practices and increase their resilience, global stakeholders have a responsibility to definitively act to reduce the need for climate change-induced disaster mitigation efforts in the most affected developing countries.