by Bayano Valy – SANF 08 No 04
“With the floods we learn not only how to deal with the land, the water and the grass, but also how to think of the use of physical space for economic growth, and reorganise the community in terms of the challenges and opportunities that arise…”
Speaking at Mozambique’s Eduardo Mondlane University in 2001, the late Dr José Negrão told his audience that the country had to learn to live with the floods.
This was instructive because the previous year Mozambique had suffered its worst floods since the mid-1970s.
Fast-forward to 2008.
Fresh floods have hit southern African countries throughout the Zambezi River basin. Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe seem to be the most affected thus far.
Warnings were aplenty; last year regional meteorologists had forecast above normal rainfalls for most member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Governments made contingency plans to offset and mitigate the impacts of the possible floods, in line with SADC recommendations.
The SADC Secretariat has been in the forefront of plans to establish an improved communications and early warning system in the region.
SADC Executive Secretary Tomáz Salomão told reporters in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, that it is important for countries upstream and downstream of major regional rivers to exchange information in order to plan joint action as agreed in the SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses.
Salomão said that in planning for development, SADC countries must put into place mechanisms designed to tackle natural disasters, which encompass mitigation activities such as rescue operations and assistance to the victims.
The Executive Secretary is heading a SADC mission travelling through the five countries to learn firsthand of the impacts of the floods.
He said that countries have strengthened their disaster preparedness mechanisms, and that most of the populations living along river banks have been rescued and placed in safer places.
A more effective early warning response and better cooperation between regional governments has led to a dramatically reduced death toll in the flooding that has hit the region this season.
The regional death toll this year has been put at 45 casualties, compared with hundreds in the 2000 floods.
The floods have affected about a million people in Zambia, compelling the government there to launch an international appeal for assistance.
In Mozambique, flooding has caused the displacement of some 80,000 people, and as many as 300,000 may eventually be affected. However, the Mozambican government has not had to launch an emergency appeal.
Government sources say this decision was based on its assessment of the situation, and has been communicated to international partners. However, government will still need US$43 million to cover the rescue operations, immediate humanitarian needs and resettlement of the population, as budgeted in its contingency plan.
So far, only US$8 million has been secured (three million from government and the remainder from the donor agencies). The United Nations has promised to mobilise a further US$12 million.
The Minister for State Administration, Lucas Chomera, has said government is confident that the remaining US$23 million will be raised.
The SADC Council of Ministers meeting at the end of February is expected to approve a draft recommendation to Heads of State and Government to ensure that each country’s efforts are complemented by the Secretariat activities to attract financial institutions into backing them.
Mozambique has been praised by the international community for its preparedness, rooted in its previous harsh experiences.
As a downstream country which suffers most from flooding, Mozambique has managed the 2008 floods without declaring an emergency, a sign that it is possible to live with the floods.
