Appeal Target: CHF 3,449,133
Period covered: January - June 2003
The Federation's mission is to improve
the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity. It
is the world's largest humanitarian organization and its millions of volunteers
are active in over 180 countries. For more information: www.ifrc.org
In Brief
Appeal coverage: 151.5%; See attached Contributions List for details.
Outstanding needs: this appeal is fully covered.
Related Emergency or Annual Appeals: Southern Africa: Food Security and Integrated Community Care (Emergency Appeal 15/03). Annual Appeals supporting the work of National Societies in: Angola (01.14/2003); Botswana (01.15/2003); Lesotho (01.16/2003); Malawi (01.17/2003); Mozambique (01.18/2003); Namibia (01.19/2003), South Africa (01.20/2003), Swaziland (01.21/2003), Zambia (01.22/2003) and Zimbabwe (01.23/2003).
Programme Summary: With the implementation of the Strategy for Change, the Regional Delegation will focus its efforts within the region on increasing the capacity of national societies, coordination, representation and advocacy, international disaster response and governance support. The Federation will also continue to provide technical support within the core programme areas of health and care, disaster management, humanitarian values and Fundamental Principles as well as organizational development. The Federation will ensure that the national societies are placed in the driving seat and the Federation will only be operation to the extent that a given national society is not able to. In this way, the Federation will contribute to the overall increased response capacity of the national societies in the region to meet the enormous humanitarian needs in the region.
The delegation underwent significant internal changes during the early part of 2003. A new Head of Regional Delegation arrived, and the delegation recruited more staff from the region in key areas such as reporting, bringing the number of regionally recruited staff to 11. The Federation's emergency food security operation, which, over the past year, was managed from Johannesburg, will be incorporated back into the Regional Delegation's responsibilities, ensuring that food security issues are integrated into all programmes to address longer terms needs which are expected to continue beyond the emergency phase.
Inadequacies in the financing of certain programme activities remain a challenge in the region. The regional health programme in particular continued to experience hardships in soliciting funds for community based health activities.
Operational developments
The region is being confronted with the second food security emergency in a decade. Nearly all of the countries covered by the Federation's Southern Africa Regional Delegation have been affected. Some six out of the ten countries are facing serious food deficits, caused by severe drought coupled with high HIV/AIDS prevalence, and compounded by economic decline.
The Zimbabwean economy continued to deteriorate with inflation running as high as over 200%. The rate is expected to reach 500% by the end of the year, unless stringent economic recovery measures are taken. On top of that, the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to worsen with no significant sign of reduction in the infection rate.
Widespread food shortages have emerged as Zimbabwe's most pressing problem despite international relief efforts, especially in the rural areas where 65% of the country's 12 million people live. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that 7.2 million people were at risk of starvation during 2003.
According to the Famine Early Warning System Networks (FEWSNET) the problem is likely to be long lasting since the areas planted during the last season was less than 50% of the average cultivated in recent years. This is an especially dangerous factor considering that yields have also dropped. Another major impediment to an early return to agricultural productivity is a chronic shortage of seeds and fertilisers needed for farming.
Whilst food insecurity and high mortality resulting from HIV/AIDS related diseases continue to be of concern to the international community and NGOs, some of the governments in the region have not yet adopted adequate measures to address the problem.
However, the South African government's budget announced in February, gives priority to reducing poverty and vulnerability. It extends the child support grant and increases spending on the primary school nutrition programme. Similarly it extends spending on social grants, textbooks, medicines, hospital buildings and equipment and further reinforces the enhanced response to HIV/AIDS. Some of the funding flows through the national health department to provinces to strengthen some relatively new initiatives like prevention of mother-to-child transmissions and prophylaxis for survivors of sexual assault.
Furthermore, food security and nutritional programmes have been launched by the South African government with Rand 1.2 billion over the next three years. This will provide food parcels to households over a three-month period, provide agricultural starter packs, make provision for income generating (IG) activities, and intensify the School Nutrition Programme. The South African government also extend its support to its neighbours by providing funds to support UN food security programmes in the region.
In Zambia, the government intimated that the country's debt burden estimated to exceed USD 300 million was intolerable, and was undermining development efforts. Meanwhile, life expectancy among Zambian adults was falling due to the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
This was published following a demographic health survey and the 2000 census of housing. According to the report, between 1990 and 2000, Zambian adults have lost approximately 11 years of life expectancy. This is highly concentrated in the reproductive age group and thought to be attributable to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. However, Zambia's health facilities are inadequate at the best of times, but the situation is especially grim for the more than 1.2 million people living with the illness.
In Mozambique, UNICEF launched a blanket supplementary feeding programme in seven provinces in collaboration with the WFP and some NGOs. The beneficiaries are estimated to be 141,000 children aged six to 59 months, and 71,000 pregnant and lactating women in 22 of the country's poorest food deficit districts. This was based on a ministry of health study, which found 44 percent of deaths in children under the age of five were linked to malnutrition.
In Swaziland, amidst political reforms, a report acknowledged that Swaziland has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. It is estimated that 38.6 percent of Swaziland's adults are HIV positive, up from 34.2 percent at the beginning of 2002.
Following the return of peace in Angola, efforts are now focused on recovery and rehabilitation work. Furthermore, the UNHCR is already working out plans for voluntary repatriation of up to 200,000 Angolans living in Zambia, 163,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 24,500 in Namibia. The first repatriation is expected to begin at the end of the rainy season in May or June. During the 27-year civil war, thousands of refugees have fled to Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Namibia.
According to ANCHOR, most of the returnees would like to resettle in Kuando Kubango, the province from where most of them fled during the war. The Angolan authorities had already rehabilitated the basic physical and social infrastructure in some areas, and established administrative structures throughout the country to deal with the returnees.
In Namibia, HIV/AIDS is affecting the education sector, and the country may lose millions that the government and donors invested into training teachers. Education authorities predict that some 4,000 teachers, or 20 percent of Namibia's total teaching staff countrywide, could be lost due to AIDS-related illnesses by 2010. According to the survey, HIV/AIDS is expected to impact negatively on the enrolment of children of school-going age, with entrants expected to decrease by 14 percent in the next seven years.
The exceptionally high number of deaths recorded among the general population is resulting in more and more orphans. About half of Namibia's 82,000 orphans lost their parents to AIDS - related illnesses.
To respond to the enormous humanitarian needs in the region, the Regional Delegation focuses its assistance to the national societies within the framework of the Strategy for Change, and the core areas of disaster response, health and care, humanitarian values and Fundamental Principles, as well as organisational development. Detailed narrative reports on all programme related issues can be found in the ten programme updates for the countries in the region.
Federation Co-ordination
The Regional Delegation continued to carry out its mandate with coordination, cooperation and developing strategic partnerships within the region and beyond. The ongoing food security operation and the massive support to the national societies' HIV/AIDS programmes are the results of hard work by the national societies and efficient programme coordination by the Federation's Regional Delegation.
National societies that have developed CAS (Cooperation Agreement Strategies) acknowledge and continue to use them as a basis for coordination, and as a capacity building tool. This was observed in the ongoing food security programme, where some donors agreed to meet CAS expectations. However, more work remains for other national societies where CAS were also developed. The challenge remains, however, to complete the CAS process by developing Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), to make programme implementation smoother.
Efforts will now be directed in initiating the CAS process with the remaining five national societies, starting with South Africa and Zambia. The national societies and the Regional Delegation have learned that in order for CAS to be an effective coordination and capacity building tool, commitment from all stakeholders must be upheld and that CAS must reflect the true nature of the situation on the ground. Models of cooperation, which are supported by stakeholders is a necessity for long-term cooperation and development. The period saw the emergence of numerous actors mainly in the food security and HIV/AIDS sector, hence calling for a more elaborate and practical model of cooperation. This challenge must be faced with optimism.
During the reporting period, the Southern Africa Delegation demonstrated this added value by serving national societies' priority needs, and facilitating all forms of partnership and cooperation. This is done through regional forums such as the SAPRCS or SARAN, but most importantly through different regional processes such as strategies and frameworks for cooperation, knowledge-sharing, best practice, advocacy and policy development.
At the same time, efforts have been directed at ensuring service delivery at country level according to the appeal outline. Harmonisation and integration of regional programmes have been successfully undertaken - especially within the food security programming. Implementation of the regional strategy has not taken off as originally anticipated. An implementation plan already developed was discussed at the SAPRCS meeting in May 2003. The regional plan of action focuses on the 'five plus one' functions in line with key Secretariat functions namely; strengthening national society, coordination, cooperation and strategic partnerships, representation and advocacy, international disaster response, governance and effective Federation management. In line with this plan, the Regional Delegation will prioritise its intervention according to the expressed needs of the national society and in conformity with the Secretariat's set objectives.
Working relationship and harmonisation with ICRC has been cordial. Efforts will be directed in seeing CAS model and other instruments of cooperation effectively used by Movement components in the region.
Goal: Southern Africa National Societies will take a more active role in their own planning and development, progressively placing more emphasis on implementing programmes in accordance with their own needs and priorities.
Objective: To build capacity and empower the southern Africa national societies to achieve their mandates through strategies for developing partnerships.
Achievements against expected results
Regional Federation coordination and support mechanisms through agreed CAS have increased the impact of Movement support to all National Societies in the region.
1. The CAS process has been consolidated and extended to all National Societies in the region.
Development of CAS in the remaining five national societies is expected to commence in the third quarter. Efforts have been directed towards implementing a Change Strategy, thus normal programme implementation is being carried forward. It is expected that CAS development will be started by the national societies in Zambia and South Africa once their Strategic Plans have been finalised. Botswana, Lesotho and Angola may not yet be ready to initiate the development of CAS. Priority areas for these national societies are in the areas of management and governance including the development of strategic plans.
2. Regional cooperation and priorities set through the SAPRCS forum and based on priorities as expressed in National Societies' strategic plans, as well as S2010 and commitments from Ouagadougou.
The SAPRCS coordination committee met in Blantyre on May 20-21, after the Malawi Red Cross had been given the chairmanship at the last meeting in Namibia last year.
The meeting was an opportunity to address the current challenges in the region, particularly food security and HIV/AIDS and to coordinate activities within these areas. Nine out of ten Secretaries General and representatives from the ICRC, Federation delegations in the region, and Geneva representatives participated in the two-day meeting. An update of the latest development within the scaling up of HIV/AIDS projects were shared at the meeting, and case studies from Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique were given as examples of best practices.
A food security update was presented. The meeting was informed that the regional food security operation, which has been based in Johannesburg, will be moving to Harare by the end of June, and will fall under the responsibility of the Regional Delegation. The integration will ensure that food security issues are integrated into all programmes to address the longer terms needs that will still exist after the emergency phase. The Secretaries General supported this development and are satisfied with the integration plans.
A full report of the meeting is available upon request from the Regional Delegation.
3. All stakeholders have a greater appreciation of the facilitator role of the Federation's Regional Delegation.
The Southern Africa Management Team (SAMT) met in February, and in May 2003. SAMTs' main aim is to review the regional environment as it impacts humanitarian needs and identify the potential vulnerabilities, maintaining an overview of the national societies in the region and the regional delegation work. Convened quarterly by the Head of Regional Delegation, SAMT brings together all Federation heads of delegations in the region, country representatives, regional programme coordinator, and the SAPRCS chairperson as a representative of the national societies and the Geneva-based regional officer. During the reporting period, the following resolutions were made:
- adoption of new SAMT terms of reference
- review of the regional strategic plan
- review and adoption of the revised regional organisation structure
- agreed implementation plan of the Secretariats' change strategy
- donors funding data and PNS mapping plan in the region
4. Regionally managed Federation assistance is coordinated and targeted at the specific needs of each National Society.
The Regional Delegation coordinated the launch of the initial food security appeal after leading a joint FACTRDRT assessment mission in the region. National society-trained RDRT personnel drawn from the regional RDRT database were instrumental in the early collection of data and report writing culminating into the development of the first food security appeal. Before the creation of the Johannesburg-based OMCC (Operations, Management and Coordination Centre), the Regional Delegation played a significant coordination role ensuring that all partners were informed of the situation and in the implementation of activities. The Regional Delegation's coordination role has been appreciated by the national societies in the region. A lot of work could be done in the coordination work of bilateral PNS partners - especially those involved in the ongoing food security operation.
5. Decentralised delivery structure achieves an impact at country level and the Regional Delegation acts as the primary link with National Society.
Recent changes in the Regional Delegation leadership brought with it fresh thinking and increased momentum in terms of management, administration and organisation. A 'Change Strategy' plan of action has been developed and implementation begun. A thorough consultative process was undertaken in this endeavour to ensure total buyin and support from all stakeholders - a process that has been largely successful and useful to the establishment of the new-look regional delegation. It is hoped that this re-organised structure will be able to offer better services to the national societies and impact positively in the lives of the vulnerable communities in the region.
6. Improved Southern Africa Delegation coordination of the collective Federation disaster response.
The Federation continued to support the national societies in the region in their preparedness efforts including regional training on vulnerability and capacity assessments carried out in Harare. The training was attended by Disaster Preparedness officers from the national societies in the region. Together with the annual regional disaster response training, the trainings within disaster management have contributed to the increased disaster response capacity in the region. Regional disaster response teams (RDRT), trained and coordinated through the Federation's Regional Delegation,were able to respond to the floods caused by tropical cyclones in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
During the Namibia floods, a regional disaster response team was also deployed under the Federation Delegation's coordination to assist the flood victims in Caprivi region. The Federation was also able to mobilise the necessary resources amongst Movement partners and other donors to support the operation.
7. Skilled and experienced personnel within the region are identified and utilised.
Implementation of activities has successfully been undertaken by a qualified and competent staff at both the Regional Delegation and national societies. Focussing on skills and competencies have been key to effective and better delivery of support. During the reporting period, the delegation maintained some 14 expatriate staff - the number increasing significantly due to the ongoing food insecurity operation. The LISN programme phased out and transition plans have been developed to integrate most LISN activities with OD, finance and disaster management programmes. There was no replacement for LISN staff at the Regional Delegation, however, modest staffing requirement may be necessary at the national society level.
The performance development review system (PDR) has been applied as appropriate. The regional recruitment and training programme launched in 1998 continued to be a priority area. Establishing and maintaining a regional resource personnel pool has proven a highly effective capacity building tool and contributed to disaster response and programme implementation. During the reporting period, two regionally recruited staff were added to the Regional Delegation, bringing the total number of regionally recruited staff to eleven. A regionally recruited water and sanitation officer from Malawi was accepted as a Federation Wat-San delegate to Pakistan. RDRT members continue to be key in the management of the food security operation in their respective national societies. During the reporting period, the region has also contributed to the global FACT training programme and deployments. Two RDRT-FACT trained members from the region participated as resource persons at the recently concluded global disaster relief training in Seoul, South Korea.
8. Improved harmonisation of activities with ICRC and PNS including the development of joint ventures, joint planning and sharing of knowledge and best practices.
Regular coordination meetings and consultations have been undertaken with the ICRC's Regional Delegations in Pretoria and Harare. The Heads of the Federation's and the ICRC's Regional Delegations discussed and agreed upon possibilities for implementing some of the objectives in the Strategy for the Movement. Following the last SAPRCS meeting, it was agreed that the Federation's Regional Delegation will lead a harmonised planning process with participation of the ICRC and the PNS working the in region.
The Federation also continues to provide technical support towards the national societies' bilateral programmes mainly through the regional HIV/AIDS and water and sanitation programmes.
9. Greater ties are strengthened between the Regional Delegation and partners to ensure adequate flow of resources to support programmes.
The Federation's Regional Delegation has started to implement the Strategy for Change focusing on providing a framework for interaction between Red Cross partners and information sharing. During his first six months, the new Head of the Regional Delegation has met with several foreign embassies and representatives of donor agencies aimed at maintaining as well as establishing new partnerships.
Impact
The impact realised from effective Federation coordination is cyclical and cannot be attributed to this reporting period alone. In the area of partnership building, national societies in the region now have the confidence to engage in effective collaboration with partners outside of the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement. The results of which have been witnessed in the numerous partnerships between the national societies and the UN system, embassies, and local non-governmental organisations. The national societies are independently able to apply Federation standards to their programmes and activities. The development of CAS through a consultative process has been rewarding and enriching not only to the Federation, but to other partners at large.
Through the CAS process, all stakeholders have learned that collaboration and commitment is the key to effective development and institutional capacity building. SAPRCS and SAMT have proved significant dialogue centres where decisions have been made collaboratively, and the priorities of the regional delegation and national societies agreed and plans drawn up accordingly. Lessons learned from across the region have been actively translated into action plans where appropriate. This has created impact at all levels.
The Federation regional programming continued to build on previously successful approaches, particularly the facilitation of intra-regional networks, knowledge exchange, training and initiatives that address common crossregional priorities. Impact at individual national society level remained the overall criteria for continuing with regional initiatives. There have been successful experiments to move away from vertical programme planning to a more integrated approach at all levels. This has been in response to realisation that individual programme support is often limited and must be harnessed in more effective ways. The current food insecurity operation is a good example where there is impact in the whole area of integration.
With support from the Secretariat, the Regional Delegation took a lead in developing regional strategies, setting policy standards and advocating on behalf of its members, taking advantage of fund-raising and communication opportunities at the regional level. The Regional Delegation took a number of steps to increase the importance of advocacy including adopting formal positions on disaster preparedness, HIV/AIDS, abuse of power, discrimination and violence.
Constraints
The food insecurity operation took centre-stage in the region, demanding a significant amount of the national societies' resources to address the emergency. Notwithstanding, some of the demands could have been lessened with better programming and integration of activities. The creation of the parallel food security structure in Johannesburg was an obstacle to integrating activities conducted as part of the emergency operation into mid- and longer term programming. Efforts have been redirected recently to address these issues and the results are promising. It has been decided that the OMCC and the Regional Delegation will be merged from mid June 2003, and it is hoped that this will result into better harmonisation and create the much-needed synergy in the programme area.
The enormous time taken initially in the action research agenda, and later on in the development of the Secretariat's Strategy for Change created minor disruptions in the programme area. Staff were, by and large, not sure about the future of the delegation following the adoption of the change strategy by the Federation Governing Board, and the delay in developing an implementation plan further raised their levels of anxiety. The introduction of a new head of regional delegation has helped restore the confidence of the staff. Efforts will now be directed to integrating the OMCC into the regional delegation in addition to implementing the Federation's change strategy.
Inadequacies in the financing of certain programme activities remain a challenge in the region. Regional health programme in particular continued to experience hardships in soliciting funds for community based health activities. Integration and harmonisation with HIV/AIDS programme will be key if general first aid and community based health activities are to continue in the region. Recent partnerships with UN WHO anti-global malaria and TB campaigns have given the regional health programme the much-needed boost in the reporting period. It is anticipated that this support and partnership will continue in the next quarter.
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