Attachments
1. Executive Summary
The heavy rains in January 2013 lasted more than one week and hence increased significantly the hydrometric levels of the main river basins in the southern (Limpopo, Incomati, Inhanombe and Save) and central (Zambezi, Pungoe and Buzi) regions. As the impact of the floods in communities rapidly increased, the Government of Mozambique (GoM) declared an institutional orange emergency alert on 12 January 2013, which was upgraded to Red Alert on 22 January 2013. Maputo City, Gaza, Zambezia and Inhambane Provinces were the most affected by the floods, but also other areas such as Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado were also affected. Additionally in Cabo Delgado a cholera outbreak kept Government and partners actively working to monitor and respond to any new cases and mitigating the potential for additional cases. Flood waters forced many people to leave their homes and become displaced. Significant damages were reported to the affected populations’ homes, livelihoods like agriculture, cattle and trade, to basic social services such as schools, healthcare centers and to community infrastructures like roads, bridges, electricity and drainage systems. The Red Alert was downgraded to Orange Alert on 12 March, and was finally lifted by the Disaster Management Technical Council (CTGC) on 19 April 2013.
As of that date, the balance on damage and loss issued by the Government indicates that almost 420,000 people were affected by floods across Mozambique and a total of 119 people lost their lives, with 17 additional deaths due to the cholera outbreak in Northern provinces.
From the onset of the floods, the GoM took the leadership in coordinating the response, and in mobilizing resources at its disposal for the floods response in affected areas. Nonetheless, resources available at the initial crisis phase were not sufficient to meet the needs of the affected population; and on 30 January 2013 the GoM requested immediate assistance from national and international humanitarian partners, in accordance with the National Contingency Plan for Rain and Cyclone Season of 2012-2013.
The initial Response and Recovery Proposal sought US$ 30.6 million to enable the International Community: United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and the Societies of the Red Cross to support the GoM in addressing the needs of 150,000 flood-affected persons in Gaza Province for the period of six months. The proposal was based on additional assessments done during the humanitarian phase, including information from the last week of January 2013 and an initial early recovery strategy for assisting people recover and rebuild their lives. As of 24 April 2013, a total of US$ 19 million was contributed by multi-lateral and bilateral donors, covering 97.8% of all the humanitarian relief needs. However, only US$ 4.3 million was received to cover early recovery activities. The present Early Recovery Strategy seeks US$ 11.7 million to enable the International Community to support the GoM effort in addressing early recovery needs for 140,000 people for a period of three months, from 30 April to 30 July 2013 and support the long term resilience building.
As agreed among the Humanitarian Country Team’s members, the present strategy is a review of the initial proposal, based on the compilation and analysis of findings from assessment and monitoring missions carried out during March and April 2013 by the GoM emergency sectors, with the support of humanitarian clusters, and their partners. Whereas there is relatively ample information about the humanitarian situation in Gaza province, the most affected area, there is less humanitarian information about the other affected areas due to limited impact of the events e.g. Zambezia, Inhambane, Sofala, Niassa, etc. For this reason, whenever possible, the information collected in this report will be geographically disaggregated (per province). In addition to clusters and sectors, other information sources on food security monitoring and early warning in southern Africa, like FEWS NET, were also searched. In considering these sources, the following information was sought, a) the number of affected people (i.e. affected and/or displaced), b) the number of damaged assets and infrastructures (belonging to households or communities), c) the humanitarian consequences resulting from floods in affected areas, and d) current response needs or gaps per cluster.
It is important to note that the major objective of this strategy is, through the use of information available, to bring light to the situation of floods early recovery needs that constitutes the main interventions of the subsequent floods response phase. In addition, since we would like this strategy to serve, as the need arises, in resource mobilization for the interventions of the early recovery phase, the needs will be given in detail per cluster, and an estimate of the budget per cluster will be provided taking into account an early recovery period of three months, from 30 April to 30 July 2013. We should consider that heavy rehabilitation works for community infrastructures like roads will be undertaken by the GoM technical ministries and development partners like the World Bank and other bilateral/multilateral donors. In order to provide guidance for the early recovery phase, an analysis of the most likely scenario will be described in the strategy.
It is essential to mention here that “Early Recovery”, it is defined as the recovery which takes place in the humanitarian setting. Most of early recovery activities will be mainstreamed throughout the clusters, but they will be coordinated and complemented, whenever gaps arise, by the Early Recovery Cluster.
The Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) will coordinate and oversee the implementation of early recovery interventions like food-for-work (FFW) and cash-for-work (CFW), in collaboration with the community authorities, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and beneficiary representatives, through the cluster approach with the support of the Humanitarian Country Team-Working Group (HCT- WG) composed of UN agencies and NGOs.