In Brief

The appeal MAA63001 covers the regional programmes and capacity building for seven Southern Africa Red Cross Societies, namely; Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. The HIV and AIDS programme is covered separately under the five-year regional HIV and AIDS programme (2006-2010) (MAA63003).

Programme purpose: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' (IFRC) Southern Africa Zone Office (SAZO) aims to provide effective programmes coordination and

Period covered by this Final Report: January-July, 2008.

Appeal target (current): CHF 8,773,852 (USD 8,436,396 or EUR 5,432,725);

Final Appeal coverage: 66%;

Appeal history:

- The Preliminary Emergency Appeal was launched on 18 January, 2008 for CHF 8,064,000 (USD 7.3m or EUR 5m) for six months to assist a total of 150,000 beneficiaries in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

- The Appeal was revised and launched

The Olupaka and Onesi main road in the Omusati Region has been severely damaged at four different places.

Councillors of both Outapi and Onesi officially announced the closure of the road to motorists until further notice.

According to locals, Omusati Governor, Sacky Kayone, visited the site.

People are complaining that there are not enough culverts for water to pass through.

"Look at this oshana, the water

More than 1,000 families, mainly in Zimbabwe's Mashonaland Central Province, have had homes and livestock washed away by the rains which began on 3 December, 2007.

Thousands of homes in the infomal settlement of Epworth, 40 kilometres east of the capital, Harare, have collapsed as a result of the rains.

Proud Chirwa, an Epworth resident, told IRIN residents were either sleeping in the open or sharing houses which

Namibia has experienced one of its worst floods in over fifty years in the northern regions of the country at the beginning of 2008. The response to the floods was one of the major activities of the NS during 2008. The HIV and AIDS baseline survey conducted by the NS as part of the southern Africa zone initiative was the highlight of 2008. The baseline was conducted in seven regions implementing home based care. The baseline's objective is to collect data where the success of the HIV and AIDS will be measured against at the end of the current programme

Mutarara, located in Tete province, bore the brunt of two consecutive years of severe flooding. Dozens of people were killed and more than 85,000 people were displaced from a total 209,360 district inhabitants as a result of the floods.

World Vision Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs Manager Moussa Sangara says, "The water levels in Mutarara this morning were only 50 centimeters short of the five meter alert level."

Kunda said a weather forecast had shown that 34 of the southern African country's 73 districts would again be hit by floods, reducing the country's white maize output to 1.2 million tonnes in the 2007/08 season from 1.3 million tonnes the previous season.

"We have developed a contingency plan targeting 31 districts in the event of occurrence of the floods,"

Speaking on International Volunteers Day at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poland, Mr. Geleta

Problem Statement/Context: The Asia Pacific region has an emergency profile characterized by a combination of natural disasters, civil/political unrest with pockets of conflict situations, and recent emerging new global threats such as high food and fuel prices crisis, the threat of pandemic influenza and other emerging diseases. In terms of natural disasters, the Asia-Pacific region is considered specifically vulnerable to floods and landslides, a yearly recurrent consequence of the seasonal rains coupled to possible formation of cyclones during the