The El Niño weather phenomenon has produced months of drought in southern Africa, which has devastated over 27 million people and resulted in the biggest hunger crisis the region has seen in decades, the UN food agency said on Tuesday.
It might develop into a “full-scale human catastrophe,” the World Food Program warned.
Due to the drought and ensuing hunger, five nations—Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—have proclaimed national disasters. According to WFP estimates, due to crop failure, around 21 million children in southern Africa are currently undernourished.
Tens of millions of people in the area depend on rain-fed small-scale agriculture for both food production and income to pay for supplies. Aid organizations issued a dire warning towards the end of the previous year as the naturally occurring El Niño led to below-average rainfall across the region, while its impact has been exacerbated by warming temperatures linked to climate change.
The WFP spokeswoman, Tomson Phiri, declared, “This is the worst food crisis in decades.” “In southern Africa, the lean season begins in October, and from then until the harvests in March and April of the following year, each month is predicted to be worse than the last. Children are lucky to get one meal a day, livestock has died, and crops have failed.
Angola on the continent’s west coast and Mozambique on its east coast are also “severely affected,” according to Phiri, demonstrating the extent to which the drought has swept over the area. The five nations that declared disasters due to the drought have begged for international assistance.
“This is a dire situation,” Phiri declared. In order to provide immediate assistance, he said the WFP needs about $369 million, but it only has a fifth of that amid a shortfall in donations. The WFP has begun helping with food assistance and other critical support at the request of various governments in the region, he said.
Southern Africa is facing a severe drought, with the US aid agency, USAID, stating it was the most severe drought in 100 years during the January to March agricultural season. This has led to a sharp increase in food prices in affected areas, further exacerbating the hardship.
El Niño, a weather phenomenon that warms parts of the central Pacific, has also contributed to the extreme weather. Zambia has lost much of its electricity and experienced blackouts due to its dependence on hydroelectric power from the Kariba Dam.
Zimbabwe shares the dam and is also experiencing power outages. Authorities in Namibia and Zimbabwe have resorted to killing wildlife to provide meat for hungry people.
Scientists argue that sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable parts of the world to climate change due to its high dependency on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources. Millions of African livelihoods depend on the climate, and poor countries are unable to finance climate-resilience measures.
(AP)
