Luanda – Over 20 million people in southern Africa face severe hunger as a result of an unprecedented drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon, Angola's permanent representative to the United Nations, Francisco José da Cruz, said Wednesday.
The diplomat, who was speaking during the monthly coordination meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, said Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe as the most affected countries in the region.
Francisco da Cruz said the current impact of El Niño, which became one of the strongest in history in the last quarter of 2023, reached its peak in the first quarter of 2024, but its impacts in southern Africa are expected to persist until April 2025.
On this occasion, he reported on the recent Extraordinary Summit of the SADC Heads of State and Government, which culminated in a regional humanitarian appeal from the community, budgeted at least 5.5 billion US dollars.
‘This amount is intended to increase internal resources of affected member states, including the resource mobilization efforts of national, regional and international partners in response to the impacts of drought and flooding caused by El Nino”, the diplomat said.
The Extraordinary Summit of the SADC Heads of State and Government, which addressed the drought in the SADC region, was chaired by the Angolan president, João Lourenço.
Francisco José da Cruz announced that the summit has received a report on the impact of disasters in the region and expressed concern about the humanitarian situation caused by the drought and floods induced by the El Niño phenomenon, which has affected more than 61 million people.
The Angolan diplomat said the meeting recognized the pledge of 33 million dollars from OCHA and 10 million dollars from FAO for the SADC regional humanitarian appeal and called for additional support from the international community to meet the urgent humanitarian needs in the affected member states and communities.
During the meeting, the permanent representatives of the SADC countries were informed about the candidature of Zimbabwe's Eunice Njovana for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for the period 2025-2028.
The meeting was also used to share information on the preparations for the Summit of the Future, the global digital pact, the world social summit and the political declaration on the High Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance.
SADC members include Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, eSwatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. FMA/ART/TED/AMP
