UNFPA, the UN Population Fund, is providing humanitarian assistance to Mozambique in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai to protect the health and well-being of women, through services for sexual and reproductive health and prevention and response to gender-based violence.
The official death toll stands at more than 200 and is expected to rise. Continuing heavy rains and further flooding are placing increasing numbers of people are at risk. The immediate priority is search and rescue for people stranded by flood waters. UNFPA is especially concerned about pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, female heads of household, and young women and girls of reproductive age including those with disabilities.
Sofala province was hit the hardest with some 660,000 people affected, and roads cut.
Due to high winds and floods, the central hospital in Beira is damaged. Some 19 sub-provincial level health facilities are damaged and dysfunctional in Sofala, thus mobile clinics are urgently needed to provide life-saving health services.
Protection is also needed. In Beira town (Sofala) the transit centers are used during the day for displaced persons, and the men often go back home for fear of robberies. This increases the risk of protection issues for women, particularly as there is a lack of privacy, the rooms are shared with other men who are strangers, the latrines are dirty from the storm and have no doors.
UNFPA is participating in the joint response, co-chairing the health cluster coordination and leading the protection cluster. As part of the joint inter-agency assessment, UNFPA is working to ensure that data is disaggregated, and priority gaps and challenges are identified to ensure access to sexual reproductive health (SRH) services and prevention and response to gender-based violence (GBV).
Given the urgent needs, UNFPA is undertaking the following activities:
• Supporting 19 mobile clinics in hard-to-reach areas
• Providing 2000 dignity Kits to the most vulnerable women and girls
• Providing 19 tents for mobile SRH services
• Providing 240 emergency reproductive kits to cover the needs of more than 300,000 affected people, including delivery kits for communities and hospitals, post-rape treatment kits, and kits for prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.
• Supporting GBV case management and psychosocial services to GBV survivors
• Increasing community awareness on GBV prevention and on available SRH and GBV services through volunteers and youth activists from the long-standing Geração Biz youth program