SITUATION OVERVIEW
Zambia is currently experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis from frequent droughts, floods and heat waves caused by climate change. These disaster risks affect the country’s poorest communities, especially in rural areas, which rely on rainfall for agriculture. These drought spells, exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon, cause the overall increasing severity of food insecurity.
Currently, 84 out of 116 districts in Zambia are affected by it. The drought has affected crops and livestock, also impacting overall access to water and sanitation, and even issues such as education. Government figures suggest that over 1 million hectares of arable land have been affected, ranging from complete crop failure to a significant drop in yields. This current drought crisis is potentially the worst the country has experienced to date, and February 2024 was the driest and hottest month since 1981. On 29 February 2024, the President of Zambia declared a state of emergency due to both prolonged drought and and recent cholera outbreak.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released in November 2023 projected that Zambia would have more than 2 million people at IPC3 or above by March 2024, while the recent rapid assessment and call by the President to address drought on 16 April 2024, reported that 6.6 million people are now in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.
Most affected by this crisis are Western, Central, Lusaka, Southern and Eastern provinces and in March 2024 a rapid assessment coordinated by the government and carried out by the Zambia Food Security Cluster revealed that households struggling to meet their basic needs. food, with many resorting to negative coping mechanisms. Although the majority of households reported growing maize (99 percent) and other crops in 2023/2024, projected production levels are low and most households report total crop failure, particularly due to prolonged droughts.
Likewise, livestock and fisheries have been equally affected due to the drying up of water sources, with 44% of respondents who keep livestock reporting reduced pastures especially for cattle, while 39% reported increased distance from water points.
The drought has also affected overall food availability, as revealed by the assessment of local food markets, which shows significant shortages of basic commodities. This low supply, at a time when demand is increasing, increases food prices, which in turn affects overall food access due to reduced household purchasing power. Most of the households surveyed in the government’s rapid assessment (45.7 percent) reported having a month’s worth of food in stock, while 5.7 percent had already exhausted their stocks.
The country is still recovering from a cholera outbreak2 that began in October 2023 and caused over 21,000 cases, given reduced access to water, which can lead to outbreaks of diarrhea as well as other vector-borne diseases. Zambia has areas that are also prone to malaria, which could spike when water bodies and streams begin to dry up and create favorable breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Overall reduced access to water thus threatens not only human lives, but could also lead to increased protection risks for women and children, as the distances and time required to fetch water increase. Female heads of households and adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to increased violence, exploitation and abuse.
With the support of its partners, the Zambia Red Cross Society (ZRCS) was able to contribute to the government’s response as follows:
▪ In March 2024, IFRC released CHF 750,000 from the Disaster Emergency Response Fund (DREF) to support 32,000 households (160,000 people) with emergency relief through multi-purpose cash grants, livelihood support through smart agriculture initiatives, nutrition and hygiene promotion and Hygiene (WASH).
▪ ZRCS distributed cash to 3,000 households in IPC4 district, Sioma, for three months as part of emergency response for the ECHO Pilot Programmatic Partnership (PPP).
▪ ZRCS is also part of the teams activated by the government through the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU).
▪ The ZRCS internal coordination mechanism meets weekly to discuss how to deal with this crisis.
▪ ZRCS participated in the rapid assessment coordinated by the Government through the Zambia Food Security System.