Attachments
This Revised Emergency Appeal seeks CHF 979,346 (increased from CHF 833,945) to enable the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to support the Mongolian Red Cross Society (MRCS) to deliver assistance and support to 27,000 people (5,400 households) for 12 months, with a focus on livelihoods including nutrition and food security, and community preparedness and risk reduction. The revised plan reflects an increased number of beneficiaries, an increase in activities, and a refocused geographic scope (from 20 to 17 provinces). The planned response reflects the current situation and information available at this point of the evolving operation, and will be adjusted based on further developments and more detailed assessments.
The disaster and the Red Cross and Red Crescent response to date
7 December 2015: An information bulletin was issued highlighting the declining temperature in Mongolia and the potential impact on the herders population. The Mongolian government officially declared that “Extreme Winter” conditions now exist in six regions in central and northwest parts of Mongolia. MRCS, with support from IFRC, looked into preparedness and response planning with other partners.
8 January 2016: A second information bulletin was issued to inform the initial assessments by the government and MRCS request for Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) support from IFRC. The National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) reported that snow has covered 90 per cent of the total territory with conditions getting more severe, with 50 soums (districts) in dzud1 state and 120 soums on the edge of entering dzud state. The MRCS national disaster response team (NDRT) members were deployed in December for rapid assessment in two most-affected provinces (Tuv and Arkhangai).
15 January 2016: IFRC allocated CHF 158,459 from DREF to support MRCS in provision of food and unconditional cash grants for 1,500 households affected by dzud, and the mobilization and deployment of 13 NDRT members and one RDRT member.
2 February 2016: In an appeal to the Humanitarian Country Team (HTC) on 2 February, the Mongolian deputy prime minister requested the mobilization of international humanitarian assistance in response to the dzud.
29 February 2016: Emergency appeal launched for CHF 833,945 to provide assistance to 5,100 households (25,500 people).
March – April 2016: A regional disaster response team (RDRT) in Cash Transfer Programming was deployed to support MRCS to monitor cash distribution, and to set up systems to monitor the activities.
31 March 2016: Operation Update 1 was issued to report on the progress of MRCS in assessments, procurement of food items and distribution of food to 1,500 most vulnerable herder households (approximately 7,500 people) in eight most affected provinces.
13 June 2016: Operation Update 2 was issued.
Recent developments, and revised operational strategy
The National Emergency Management Authority has officially declared the winter dzud over in April 2016; however, spring conditions remained variable and harsh, with snowfall occurring in some parts, and dry conditions anticipated.
Based on the latest assessments results conducted by the Mongolian government and the United Nations in May 2016, 62 soums in 17 aimags (provinces) are currently categorized as having dzud conditions, while 51 soums in 15 provinces having conditions close to dzud. The severe winter threatens the livelihood of over 225,000 Mongolians who live as nomadic herdsmen (41 per cent of all herder population) and are losing their livestock. Of nearly 56 million livestock, over 1.1 million animals have perished.
This revised emergency appeal aims to scale up ongoing operation and strengthen the longer-term recovery component through approaches aimed at providing herder households with necessary skills, knowledge and confidence to build more diverse livelihoods. Technical partnership with the Ministry of Labour and World Vision will allow capitalizing on the technical expertise of these two partners. While the Ministry of Food and Agriculture will assist MRCS to reduce herders’ vulnerability to future dzud through optimized hay and fodder collection and preservation.
Climate change adaptation will be taken into consideration during the recovery phase of the operation through awareness raising among the targeted beneficiaries and sharing best practices on climate-smart disaster risk reduction (DRR). MRCS has recently compiled a report based on its climate change adaptation research and it is currently piloting CCA approaches with support from IFRC.
MRCS will further strengthen its capacity in disaster management, particularly at the local and branch levels. This operation will allow MRCS to learn and adopt long term economic development approaches in support of vulnerable herders.