2nd Southern Africa Dialogue Platform: El Niño Insights: Southern Africa Anticipation After Action Review
Southern Africa El Niño Anticipation after Action Review
13/08/2024 - 15/08/2024
In Southern Africa, FAO is supporting SADC member states in developing El Niño early warning systems, through funding from German Federal Foreign Office and the European Union.
©FAO/ Donald Chidoori
The SADC Region continues to face significantly devastating impacts of climate-related risks, natural hazards, and disasters. Since the 1980s, the region has seen an increase in the number of reported disasters whose intensity, frequency and level of devastation has been increasing, thereby compromising the developmental strides that the region has been making. These devastating impacts of disasters particularly in Southern Africa have become an indicator that the region and Member States may not attain the Sustainable Development Goals. As such, in March 2022, the Secretary General of the United Nations directed the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), to lead a new initiative that will provide every citizen on the planet with coverage of an Early Warning System. The Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative is a groundbreaking effort to ensure everyone on Earth is protected from hazardous weather, water, or climate events through life-saving early warning systems by the end of 2027.
To operationalize this call, the SADC Secretariat co-convened the Southern Africa Ministerial Conference on Early Warning and Early Action jointly with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in September 2022. Ministers committed to the establishment of early warning systems (EWS) at the national level and endorsed the Maputo Declaration on Early Warning and Early Action. A roadmap was developed to operationalize the implementation of the Maputo declaration, which includes activities such as the development of robust EWS and building capacity for disaster preparedness to inform anticipatory action.
The Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF) forecasted that the majority of the region was likely to experience normal to below-normal rainfall during the October to December 2023 period; above-normal precipitation was forecasted for north-eastern SADC areas, including Seychelles, while some parts could expect normal to above-normal rainfall. Supported by various organizations under regional coordination of the Regional Anticipatory Action Working Group (RAAWG), the SADC region saw its largest disbursement of anticipatory finance and largest scale of people reached through anticipatory actions to date. Six SADC member states, supported by a variety of organizations implemented anticipatory action ahead of predicted drought impact. Collectively, SADC member states and RAAWG reached more than two million people and unlocked close to USD31 million in anticipatory finance to deliver drought anticipatory actions.
With operational learnings and evidence generated in Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, SADC Secretariat the RAAWG is bringing together SADC member states, RAAWG members, academic institutions and scientific reference centers and the donor community. Jointly, participants to reflect on the large-scale El Niño drought anticipatory action activations, assessing the performance of forecast-based trigger models, the impact of implemented actions, and display evidence generated on the return-on-investment and cost effectiveness of executed ex-ante operations.