Southern African countries ask for US$5.5 billion to respond to El Niño

The leaders of southern Africa asked this Monday, at an extraordinary summit of heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), for US$5.5 billion to respond to the adverse effects of The boywhich has left serious floods and droughts.

“SADC launched a regional humanitarian appeal of more than US$5.5 billion and made efforts to mobilize resources and efforts from national, regional and international partners to address the impacts of drought and floods caused by the El Niño phenomenon”the leaders said in a statement issued at the end of the summit, which was held online.

Thus, the pan-African organization indicated that the droughts and floods intensified by this meteorological phenomenon already affect more than 61 million people in the region.

Next August, the SADC will present a hearing of this humanitarian appeal to evaluate its results on the ground.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), present at the meeting, promised 33 million and 10 million dollars, respectively, a contribution that the SADC appreciated.

Even so, he continued to call on the international community to “to provide additional support to the region”.

He also called for solidarity between Member States, mobilizing resources such as surplus grain to assist people in need.

The president of Angola, João Lourenço, participated in the summit; from Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi; from Namibia, Mokgweetsi Masisi; from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Félix Tshisekedi; from Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema; and from Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, among other leaders.

El Niño, a change in atmospheric dynamics caused by rising temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, has intensified a drought in some southern African countries, including Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

There, NGOs like CARE have warned that millions of people are in a “critical situation” of hunger, after their crops could not grow.

Zimbabwe is one of the most affected countries, where almost half of the population, some 7.7 million people, are going hungry.

As rains become scarce in southern Africa, The boy It has also left floods and torrential rains in Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, Somalia and Ethiopia with hundreds of deaths.