About 74 percent of the US$2.9billion required for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Humanitarian Appeal is yet to be raised as only US$757 million which translates to 26 percent has been raised by governments and partners.
The money raised so far includes US$222million from SADC governments US$535million from partners. The SADC Regional is facing an estimated cereal shortfall of 9.3million metric tonnes which will have to be sourced from within and outside the region to support the 28 million people requiring urgent humanitarian support.
In an effort to facilitate increased humanitarian support, the SADC El-Niño Logistics and Coordination Team has prepared a guiding document on how to give to the Regional Humanitarian Appeal.
Six SADC Member States have declared national drought disasters and the SADC El-Niño Logistics and Coordination Team is helping to facilitate smooth transportation humanitarian relief cargo.
At a recent meeting of ministers responsible for SADC meeting of Ministers responsible for ICTs, Transport and Meteorology, the Ministers noted the regional plan for transporting humanitarian relief cargo including the challenges on the Beira corridor and urged all mainland Member States to expedite the nomination of Focal Points by end of November 2016 to facilitate coordination of humanitarian relief cargo transport and logistics.
Ministers further urged all drought affected Member States to provide the SADC Secretariat with reports on their national plans and coordination arrangements for drought relief transportation by end of November 2016. The report must include volumes of anticipated imports–commodity/volumes and timelines, ports and routes panned and coordination structures including contact details of key officials.