Attachments
Background
Zambia is highly susceptible to climate impacts, as evidenced by natural events such as floods, prolonged dry spells/droughts, and pest infestations. Additionally, anthropogenic hazards, including population movement, human and livestock health issues, and disease outbreaks, further exacerbate food insecurity concerns. There has been a steady increase in both frequency and intensity of risks over the years mainly attributed to climate variability. From these risks, floods pose the biggest threat to people’s livelihoods being the hazard that affects most communities in Zambia.
This led Zambia Red Cross Society (ZRCS) to develop an Early Action Protocol (EAP) for riverine Floods, with the support of Netherlands Red Cross. The EAP was approved in October 2020 by the Anticipatory Pillar of the IFRC’s Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF) which supported the implementation and the activation of the protocol.
The EAP focuses on riverine floods, using a GloFAS forecast which monitors water discharge in various stations. The early actions trigger is based on a threshold corresponding to 10 years return period flood in one or more GloFAS stations. The EAP gives ZRCS a 7-day lead time to implement early action activities that aim to mitigate the risks on communities most at risk. The anticipated risks include displacement of people due to the destruction of houses; water borne disease outbreaks such as cholera due to contamination of water points, as well as increased malaria incidences due to increased exposure to mosquitos, crop losses and damage due to flooding. In line with these risks, the EAP proposed early actions for shelter, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)/health, and food security as priority sectors.
On 22 January 2023, the Impact Based Forecasting (IBF) Portal that connects GloFAS, to water gauge stations managed by WARMA, sent a warning to the Zambian Red Cross Society (ZRCS) showing that the trigger threshold was reached, which indicated the high likelihood of flodding in ten districts across the country. According to the portal, Kitue District (reached on 22 January) and Kafue District (reached on 26 January) were anticipated to be at greater risk, impacting 12,232 people (2,039 Households) and 16,468 people (2,745 Households) respectively, with flooding anticipated to peak on 28 January 2023. As soon as the alert was received, the Forecast based Financing (FbF) Technical Working Group on Anticipatory Actions in Zambia held a meeting to evaluate the situation and agreed to activate the EAP. The National Society mobilized its resources and conducted early actions in Kitwe and Kafue.
Mid-2023, the Netherlands Red Cross commissioned a study to learn from this EAP activation followed by an emergency response operation thanks to the support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The purpose of this review is threefold:
1) Understand the extent to which the anticipatory actions for floods implemented in 2023 in Zambia were relevant to the communities and efficiently implemented.
2) Learn how the transition from anticipatory action to emergency response went and what we can take away from this.
3) Understand to what extend did the implementation of the two approaches of anticipatory action and PER (Preparedness for Effectiveness Response) work in synergy in getting the ZRCS ready to respond to the situation.