Head of regional bloc SADC says 17 p.c of individuals throughout area in want of support amid local weather change-fuelled drought.
Tens of thousands and thousands of individuals in Southern Africa are struggling the results of an El Nino-induced drought, a regional bloc has warned, with a drop in crop and livestock manufacturing inflicting meals shortages in a number of international locations.
Elias Magosi, government secretary of the Southern African Growth Neighborhood (SADC), mentioned on Saturday that 17 p.c of the area’s inhabitants – some 68 million individuals – are in want of help.
“The 2024 wet season has been a difficult one with most components of the area experiencing detrimental results of the El Nino phenomenon characterised by the late onset of rains,” Magosi mentioned.
His remarks come because the heads of state of the 16-nation SADC had been assembly in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare to debate regional points, together with meals safety.
Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia are among the many international locations in Southern Africa most affected by malnutrition attributable to the drought, which started in early 2024.
Reporting from Harare on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa mentioned the SADC nation leaders had been more likely to be discussing easy methods to get extra funding and meals support to affected international locations.
“Crops are dying, it’s an enormous drawback,” Mutasa mentioned.
In early June, the United Nations World Meals Programme highlighted the dire results of the drought, notably on communities already susceptible to meals shortages.
“Rural communities we’ve met on the bottom inform us they’ve by no means seen something like this. They’re extraordinarily fearful about their future,” mentioned Reena Ghelani, the UN local weather disaster coordinator for the El Nino response.
Southern Africa noticed its driest February in 100 years, the UN mentioned, receiving solely 20 p.c of the standard rainfall. Temperatures had been additionally a number of levels above common.
UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres said late last month that excessive warmth fuelled by the local weather disaster was “more and more tearing by means of economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Growth Objectives, and killing individuals”.
“We all know what’s driving it: fossil fuel-charged, human-induced local weather change. And we all know it’s going to worsen; excessive warmth is the brand new irregular,” he mentioned.
Consultants have warned that as the results of local weather change intensify, climate patterns have gotten extra excessive with droughts, super-charged hurricanes, floods and wildfires affecting a lot of the globe.