End of Mission Report: United Nations Disaster Assessment & Coordination (UNDAC) Drought – Paraguay (22 Sep - 9 Oct 2022)

1. Emergency Information

1.1. Emergency description and initial response

The prolonged drought caused by La Niña that, according to the WMO, could extend until the first quarter of 2023 and that affects the South American Gran Chaco, is a concern of the international community and the United Nations (UN). In this sense, the UN Resident Coordinators in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay have been developing advocacy actions to draw attention to the area and the impacts of drought on the lives of the people who inhabit it. From June 11 to 19, 2022, a high-level joint visit was made to the communities of the border area of the three countries to talk with the communities, identify their challenges and make joint advocacy to highlight the humanitarian needs that people have due to the effects of the prolonged drought that affects them.
As a follow-up to this trinational mission, the UN Resident Coordinator and the Paraguay Country Team decided to organize an inter-agency assessment mission to the field to obtain first-hand information on the situation in the Chaco.

1.2. Impact

Paraguay is currently suffering the most severe drought in the last eighty years. The last three years there has been a sharp reduction in rainfall causing a drought that is expected to extend until the first quarter of 2023. The most affected departments are Boquerón, Presidente Hayes and Alto Paraguay in the region known as the Paraguayan Chaco. The graph below shows the development of rainfall in the department of Boquerón since the beginning of 2022 resulting in a corresponding severe accumulated rainfall deficit of 385 mm compared to a total accumulation of 167 mm of rainfall. This rainfall deficit corresponds to situations of extreme drought as could be found in arid or semi-arid ecosystems such as Somalia. This drought related to the La Niña phenomenon has generated a critical situation in western Paraguay, causing serious impacts on access to water, food security, health and livelihoods, thus aggravating the fragile conditions of vulnerability of indigenous populations and peasant communities.
To face this situation by the National Government, a state of emergency has been declared on April 5, 2022 by the Paraguayan National Nation. Likewise, a state of emergency has been declared in the districts of Filadelfia,
Loma Plata, Mariscal Estigarribia and Boquerón of the Department of Boquerón, while in the Department of Presidente Hayes an emergency was declared in the districts of Teniente Irala Fernández and Campo Aceval.