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Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Food Security Emergency appeal n° MDRZW006 Operation update n°3

Attachments

Period covered by this Ops Update: 29 January 2013 - 27 February 2013

Appeal target (current): CHF 1,290,342.

Appeal coverage: 33% (Excluding DREF funds)

Appeal history:

This Emergency Appeal was launched on 10 December 2012 for CHF 1,290,342 for a 9 month period to provide immediate assistance to 10, 000 beneficiaries.

Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF): CHF 120,000 was initially allocated from the Federation’s DREF to support the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society (ZRCS) in its response.

Operations Update No.1 was issued on 8 January 2013 while Operations Update No. 2 was issued on 30 January 2013 giving progress of activities.

Summary: The ZRCS has been implementing the Food Insecurity Operation in Nkayi district since December 2012. The funding received was prioritised for the procurement of food items, vegetable seeds, sugar beans (agriculture), latrine construction and borehole rehabilitation. Collaboration between the district authorities and the ZRCS staff and volunteers worked very well during the food distribution, ensuring that the distribution points were orderly. Each of the 2,000 household’s received food hampers worth USD 27. It is important to note that mealie meal given was milled and ready for use, a factor that assisted beneficiaries who did not have money for milling the maize into flour.

The food security situation has worsened in the target district as no significant rains were received in the month of February 2013. This affected the crops which were already in the vegetative stage and it is foreseen that the harvest will not be sufficient.

To date, 100 bags of cement and borehole parts have been prepositioned for the rehabilitation of 20 out of the 30 targeted boreholes and are stored at District Development Fund (DDF) offices. Further assessments for citing of 10 more boreholes have been concluded, in collaboration with DDF.

Future plans include training on Participatory Health and Hygiene Education (PHHE) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) for the target community in the month of March.

Contributions to this Emergency Appeal have been received from American Red Cross, British Red Cross, Japanese Red Cross Society, Red Cross of Monaco and the Swedish Red Cross. The IFRC, on behalf of the National Society, would like to extend thanks for their contribution.