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Zambia Needs $930 Mln in Humanitarian Recovery Assistance Due to ‘Worst Drought’ Ever Recorded There

18:50, 17 April 2024

Christina Glazkova

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Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema proclaimed a national disaster and emergency in late February due to the extreme drought caused by El Niño, a climate change-related phenomenon. The lack of rainfall in Zambia has had a substantial impact on its energy and agricultural security.

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The president of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema, stated on Tuesday that his country is in urgent need of 23.5 billion kwacha (more than $930 million) to adequately address the immediate life-saving and sustaining humanitarian and recovery needs caused by the catastrophic drought.

"Of this amount, 1.3 billion kwacha [$51.4 million] is available, leaving a financing gap of 22.2 billion kwacha [about $879 million]. [...] With a heavy heart and on behalf of our government and the people of Zambia, we hereby appeal to the international community, our partners within the country, the private sector, the Church and civil society organizations to support our plan financially and materially in mitigating the devastating effects of this drought," Hichilema said in a televised address to the nation.

The president said that "Zambia had experienced extremely low rainfall this year, culminating in the worst drought that the country has experienced since records began."

"The effects of the drought have been clearly observed in crop production, where one million hectares of planted maize have been adversely affected across 84 of our 116 districts across the country. 9.8 million of our people have been adversely affected by this drought; of this, 6.6 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance," he said.

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All the required money will be used for food assistance, education (with an accent on the school feeding program), protection of children and pregnant women, water resource development and management, agricultural production, as well as live stock and wild life preservation, the leader of Zambia explained.

The severe drought has not only impacted the southern African country's food security but also its energy sector. In March, Zambia had to implement electricity load shedding to ensure the ongoing stability of the national power grid, which was hindered by low water levels at Kariba Dam, the primary source of hydroelectric power in Zambia.