Millions of people across Southern Africa are going hungry due to a historic drought, risking a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe, the United Nations has warned.
Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have all declared a state of national disaster in the past months as the drought has destroyed crops and livestock. Angola and Mozambique are also severely affected, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said in a briefing on Tuesday, warning that the crisis is expected to deepen until the next harvests in March or April 2025.
Tens of millions of people in the region rely on small-scale agriculture, irrigated by rain, for their food and to make money to buy provisions.
Aid agencies warned of a potential disaster late last year as the El Nino weather phenomenon led to below-average rainfall across the region. Its effects have been intensified by rising temperatures linked to climate change. In July, a UN official said it was the worst drought to hit the region in a century. It has wiped out 70 per cent of the harvest in Zambia and 80 per cent in Zimbabwe, WFP’s acting regional director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said.
The lack of rain has also slashed hydropower capacity in the region, leading to long electricity cuts, while Zimbabwe and Namibia have announced wildlife culls to relieve pressure on resources.
Authorities in Namibia and Zimbabwe have resorted to killing wildlife, including elephants, to provide meat for hungry people.
Scientists say sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable parts of the world to climate change because of its high dependency on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources. Millions of African livelihoods depend on the climate, while poor countries are unable to finance climate-resilience measures.
Experts have also warned that climate change-induced droughts and irregular rainfall patterns are negatively affecting the yield, development, taste, and harvest periods of various crops.