by Virginia Kapembeza
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has made an appeal to the international community for aid to avert the effects of drought which threatens food security and the region’s economic structures.
SADC launched the appeal for US$270 million in Geneva recently to promote drought recovery and to ensure self-reliance in the future.
It is estimated that nine million people have been directly affected by the drought which resulted in a 42 percent decline in the harvest of the region’s predominant food crop, maize, and an overall harvest 35 percent less than last year’s.
Launching the appeal, SADC’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Kaire Mbuende, said in most countries in southern Africa, the rains were erratic and ended early which had a devastating impact on crops. Of the people affected, Mbuende said, some were already depending on emergency rations, even though the regional harvest has just ended, while others would need support later as their food stocks were insufficient.
Neither Tanzania nor South Africa requested assistance and this was attributed to the reasonable rainfall season the two countries experienced and the generally larger volume of resources in South Africa.
Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland, are most affected by the drought.
Mbuende also reported that Jack of potable water has become a threat to industries, health, with the attendant risk of disease outbreaks, and is a cause of livestock deaths. Lack of access to safe water and sanitation is especially a problem in rural areas because alternative supplies are further apart and costly to obtain. Most countries, therefore, requested aid to rehabilitate existing boreholes and to drill new ones while water would have to be ferried to affected communities in Botswana and Lesotho.
”In addition, we must ensure that recovery is stimulated as soon as possible, so measures to protect nucleus breeding herds to provide inputs for agriculture to allow production next year will be necessary.” said Mbuende.
Providing potable water would also result in communities staying on their land and prevent rural-urban migration which would reduce pressure on urban areas. The appeal for water and sanitation was US$25. 7 million and $14.6 for health-related assistance.
“The impact of the drought must also be considered in the context of the capacity for the region to fend for itself while so many countries are implementing economic structural adjustment programmes … much of what improvement there has been in foreign exchange earnings has tended to be channelled into debt repayment or much-required capital investment,• continued Mbuende. He added that the region’s capacity to pay for supplies it needed from outside is severely constrained and unless pressures on Member States’ financial resources were alleviated, the region faces another setback in economic development and a serious erosion of welfare.
SADC’s Consolidated Drought Appeal includes a specific request for US$45.4 million to maintain supplementary feeding programmes in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Mbuende also noted that governments had taken heed of the lessons learnt in the previous drought and built up stocks, restricted exports or started buying grain from outside early in the year. Thus most of the food being requested is for emergency feeding, whose distribution would include international agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Each country would, however, have to source additional amounts of programme food on a bilateral basis since the appeal, which was less than a third of the quantity requested for the 1992 drought emergency, only included the amount that was deemed to be an urgent requirement.
The provision of agricultural inputs also formed part of the appeal and was valued at US$81.5 million.
In view of the drought this year, this was considered an essential component to help farmers produce crops next year in the absence of seeds, and for some, tools.
Mbuende added that for Angola, the position is especially acute, as internally displaced people begin to return to their land. We look to the international community for strong support in this category in order to allow our countries the potential to recover and to promote greater domestic availability, including the rebuilding of our stocks, R he added.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) congratulated SADC on the initiative taken in compiling and launching the appeal noting that it was encouraging that strong emphasis was placed on the exceptional needs arising from the drought concerning clean water, sanitation, basic healthcare and child nutrition.
At the conference, Richard Morgan, UNICEF’s Regional Programme Planning Officer for Eastern and
Southern Africa, said basic food and non-food needs have to be addressed and secured together if malnutrition and death are to be averted. The recognition that food security, health security and clean water security are all essential in a drought emergency is firmly based on southern African experience, particularly the response to the severe drought of 1991/92,’’ he said.
“The SADC Early Warning System, Food Security Sector and Secretariat have played essential roles in coordinating the formulation of a multi-sectoral, multi-country response by the region to this latest drought situation, and in bringing it to international attention.” observed Morgan.
A 1993 SADC/UNICEF evaluation of the management of the 1991/92 drought recommended that no- food interventions and resource requirements be fully integrated into future drought planning, hence the
Geneva Appeal. The evaluation also suggested greater recognition of the role played by community organizations and women in drought-mitigation programmes. Also included was a recommendation that the design and phasing of structural adjustment measures and macro-economic targets should be modified during times of droughts.
UNICEF pledged to assist SADC states in the mobilization of additional resources to meet high priority requirements in its areas of competency and also capacity-building for drought management. Morgan said that southern Africa has demonstrated a strong political will and technical ability to effectively deal with drought emergencies in recent years, drawing on the civil society, private sector and the international community as well as governments .(SARDC)
