ECOSOC Special Meeting: response to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe

                                                              

 

 

ECOSOC Special Meeting
Response to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe

Carla Mucavi, Director, FAO Liaison Office with the United Nations in New York

 

FAO joins with the UN family and the wider humanitarian community in the shared sense of shock and great concern for the affected peoples of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. FAO offers its condolences to the families and communities who have lost loved ones, and their homes, farms, crops, livestock, and livelihoods, and stands in solidarity with the governments of the 3 countries affected by Tropical Cyclone Idai.

 

FAO immediately activated its highest-level response protocol- Level 3- in support of Mozambique and has already committed 500,000USD from FAO’s Special Fund for Emergency Response. In addition, FAO has deployed significant human and technical resources to accelerate our support to the national response in all 3 countries.

 

FAO teams in the three affected countries, together with OCHA, WFP and other UN agencies, the Government and partners, are carrying out food security and nutrition assessments to evaluate the impact of the disaster on agriculture, fisheries and livestock in all three countries. But we already know that the damage from this cyclone to agricultural livelihoods - and consequently to the food security and nutrition for millions of people - is vast. Food insecurity is expected to rise significantly in the months ahead.

 

FAO and our partners are already working to deliver targeted expertise, seeds and livestock to ease immediate food and nutrition needs,  and ensure that we don’t miss the next planting season which is staring now.

 

As part of the wider effort, FAO is appealing for 28 million US dollars to reach approximately 900 000 people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

 

I want to emphasise that this disaster calls on us all to expand the concept of life-saving interventions to include livelihoods protection. Normalizing livelihoods must be a first-order priority in humanitarian responses and in this response in particular.

 

Once the emergency is overcome, we must maintain a continued focus in supporting governments to restore livelihoods, build resilience, protect food security and nutrition over the medium and longer term and ultimately reduce the worst impacts of such extreme climate events across the region in the future.  

 

Thank you.