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Mozambique

Mozambique: Floods and Cyclone - Emergency appeal No. MDRMZ002 Final report

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Summary:

CHF 187,000 was initially allocated from the Federation's Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the national society in responding by delivering assistance to flood-affected families.

A Preliminary Emergency Appeal was launched on 16 February 2007 for CHF 7,464,923 (USD 5,971,938 or EUR 4,524,196) for 6 months to assist 100,000 beneficiaries (20,000 families).

A Revised Emergency Appeal was launched on 14 March 2007 for CHF 20.6 m (USD 16.9m or EUR 12.8 m) for 6 months to assist 117,235 beneficiaries (23,447 families) affected by both the floods and the cyclone.

Mozambique Red Cross (CVM) In Portuguese - Cruz Vermelha de Moçambique and its partners played an essential role in preparing communities to face both the floods and cyclone, and in easing their recovery and return to normal life. The CVM responded immediately to the two disasters, which struck the country in rapid succession early in 2007. Non-food relief and emergency shelter reached some 24,000 families, or 120,000 beneficiaries in total - with capacity enhanced through the availability of pre-positioned stocks. Real-time evaluation indicated that relief distributions met the target within a reasonable timeframe, under challenging logistical circumstances. Basic monitoring activities showed that items were being used, were considered appropriate and necessary by beneficiaries, and that there was limited duplication of distributions by other organisations.

The Federation Zone office in Southern Africa deployed staff, along with five Emergency Response Units (ERUs) to Mozambique to provide technical expertise and increase local capacity to meet the most urgent humanitarian needs in the areas of health, water and sanitation, relief, logistics and telecommunications. Over 90 staff from CVM national headquarters (17) and provincial and district levels (74), as well as more than 740 trained volunteers worked side by side with Red Cross Red Crescent partners. In addition to relief activities, the operation provided assistance in the following areas:

- A concerted effort to raise hygiene awareness among displaced populations had a significant positive impact, with improved sanitary conditions reported in many accommodation centres. To improve sanitary conditions in the longer term, trained Red Cross volunteers have been working with village committees to fabricate concrete latrine slabs at the community level, using sand, cement and water. Moulds for the casting of slabs are on-site and the volunteers are supervising quality production of approximately 2,400 sanitary slabs.

- Volunteers at first aid posts, located in accommodation centres and resettlement sites, played a vital role in monitoring the incidence of common diseases. These were the primary sources of epidemiological data used by the Ministry of Health and WHO World Health Organisation www.who.int . They also provided basic health care, vaccination, referrals and sensitization, reaching over 230,000 people. Some 14,500 patients were treated at the Basic Health Care ERU and over 16,000 people received assistance at first aid posts.

- Flood-affected communities had access to safe drinking water using a range of methods - including water treatment, water purification and well rehabilitation - to ensure ready availability. Approximately 115m3/day of clean drinking water was distributed to 35,000 displaced people in 16 accommodation centres and 15 new boreholes were drilled, providing access to safe water to some 59,000 people.

- The Red Cross was able to provide immediate shelter to many affected families thanks to its pre-positioned stock of tents. For longer-term recovery, shelter kits were distributed to 12,925 families - designed to assist in the construction of houses in resettlement sites using traditional locally-available materials.

- CVM has also initiated a programme to improve the quality of housing construction, so that newly-built houses are better able to withstand the effects of natural disasters. Actual construction of two prototypes of housing is being undertaken in a number of communities. These will be photographed, documented and used to produce training material for use by volunteers to raise awareness about the techniques involved in building cyclone-resistant housing.

Overall, CVM disaster preparedness and early warning activities are credited with minimizing the impact of the floods and cyclone, with less loss of lives than in previous disasters of this scale.