Attachments
Emergency Appeal start date:19 April 2017
Covered by this update: 19 April to 21 June 2017
The Regional Food Crisis in Africa Emergency Appeal (EA) seeks CHF 3,877,335 to enable the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to support National Societies in their activities to help the population affected by the Food Crisis in Africa. The Appeal was launched to complement and to support the current country-level emergency operations Emergency Appeals (EAs) related to the Food Crises, mainly those focusing on drought and food insecurity. It aims at providing a structural framework for the country-level EAs, enabling opportunities to support the country-level response activities by strengthening and scaling up operational support, coordination, communication, capacity building, security and safety for staff and volunteers in all affected countries in the region. The scope is to better assist the affected population by addressing challenges in response and early recovery and using resources effectively through shared opportunities. The Regional Coordination Food Crisis does not highlight specific implementation activities, but rather provides a strategy to coordinate implementation in the country-level EAs for enhanced synergies. The main components of the response to the regional Food crisis focus on multi-sectoral needs through Health and Nutrition, WASH, Food Security and Livelihoods’ interventions.
The Regional Food Crisis Africa team’s attention is currently focused on operations in the following countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan, where acute crisis is ongoing1. In Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Appeals have now concluded where in Malawi and Namibia, they have been extended until the end of July to complete activities. Although significant improvement in food security is expected in Southern Africa for the months to come, these countries, as well as countries in the Sahel, will remain closely monitored as still considered at-risk countries.
The Regional coordination team dedicated to this Food Crisis Appeal is based in Nairobi and currently functional with: Operations Coordinator, Health\Nutrition, Cash Transfer Programming (CTP), Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (PMER), Logistics, and Communications. The IFRC would like to thank the Australian Red Cross, the Canadian Red Cross, the Danish Red Cross, the Netherlands Red Cross and Luxembourg Red Cross to have funded the deployment of these regional positions and invite donors to further funding for key positions to support with the relief and recovery phase. Donors response.
This update covers the operations from 19 April 2017 to 21 June 2017.
Situation Analysis:
Since the end of 2016, the African continent is facing an unprecedented food crisis, with peaks predicted throughout 2017. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET), 70 million people across 45 countries could require food assistance in 2017. The causes and factors of this crisis are multi-layered. At the environmental level, the severe droughts observed in 2015/2016 due to El Nino and in 2016/2017 due to La Nina with below-average rainfall have sharply reduced crop harvests and severely limited the availability of water and pasture for livestock in the region. These effects have been amplified by a chronic situation of below average rainfall and poor harvest seasons for the last few years. At the social level, the environmental impacts have drastically reduced the coping capacities of the population, especially for those already impacted by reduced livelihood opportunities or other circumstances, such as poor access to health facilities.
Conflicts and violence have further exacerbated vulnerabilities of the population present in affected countries. At the economic level, the persistence of local or regional conflicts have been creating disruption to household livelihoods, production of food and trade. Another consequence of this violence is decreased access to humanitarian aid. This is particularly true in Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan. Further, the lack of preventive measures has not allowed for proper mitigation efforts for the risks connected to the food crisis.
The population movement situation is particularly problematic in the East Africa region due to the extreme complexity of population movements, which include Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), refugees, migrants, people displaced because of the drought, returnees, as well as people moving in huge numbers from rural areas to urban centers. The current crisis is likely to lead to an increase in the number of displaced persons across the region, adding considerable pressure on the existing and already limited resources available in most of the countries concerned, thus having an impact on the overall humanitarian situation. Adding to this, severe outbreaks of cholera, acute watery diarrhea, and other communicable diseases are ongoing in Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nigeria, contributing to the elevated levels of acute malnutrition and mortality. The Red Cross Movement is responding in the immediate to these complex crises while working on longer term response.