Country responses
Country responses to El Niño have differed, with some limiting water usage, banning exports of maize, applying for emergency assistance, as highlighted in the preceding sections. Some additional measures implemented by Eastern and Southern African governments are highlighted below, with a view to illustrating the need for coordinated efforts, and the opportunities present for public-private partnerships to address the current crisis and safeguard against the weather bandit in future.
In East Africa, the Ethiopian government has implemented water restrictions and undertaken public-private partnerships to drill new boreholes and rehabilitate dysfunctional water schemes. School feeding schemes are being rolled out in partnership with international aid agencies, in order to combat rising drop-out rates and absenteeism. The state has committed to increasing capacity at various warehouses, and to provide additional trucks to ease transportation bottlenecks and improve the distribution of aid.
In Southern Africa, the SADC declared a regional drought disaster on the 16th of March 2016, with plans to establish a regional coordination and logistics centre to fast-track the regional response. At a country-level, some governments have established national response plans (e.g. Lesotho’s Government Response Plan, and Zimbabwe’s National Drought Relief Plan), but due to economic and political obstacles, and the extent of the crisis, plans have lacked in execution or simply proven insufficient.
‘Team South Africa’
The South African government has come up with an integrated response. ‘Team South Africa’ is made up of the Department of Water and Sanitation, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.
Team South Africa has taken a regional approach, starting with the hardest-hit, agriculturally- significant regions, which include KwaZulu-Natal, the North West and Free State. R524 million (USD 35.6 million) has been allocated by the government to undertake drought relief projects such as the drilling and rehabilitation of boreholes, the purchase of 18 thousand litre water tankers for residential and agricultural distribution of water, water conservation and demand management strategies, as well as ensuring access to food for affected rural and agricultural communities.
In addition, funding vehicles have been opened up to support commercial and subsistence farmers to weather the losses made from crop failure and loss of livestock. This has been facilitated through a collection of development finance institutions (DFIs) including the Industrial Development Corporation, the Land Bank and others.
The Industrial Development Bank has been an active partner in a number of projects in South Africa, with a business unit dedicated to exploring opportunities in the agro-processing and agriculture sector. Such focused efforts have paid off, with sales in agro-processing increasing by 8.4% in the third quarter of 2015, despite the overall 12% contraction in agriculture for the same period.
The provision of livestock feed, as well as the opening up of state-owned farms as alternative grazing areas, has assisted farmers. Daily residential water restriction measures have also been imposed in a number of municipalities across the country to try to build up reserves in reservoirs as well as support affected areas with water delivery.
The government is also planning to import up to 6 million tonnes of maize and is strategising on delivery methods since the Transnet ports’ agricultural terminals have a total of only 4 million tonnes of annual capacity. An on-going programme has been initiated to monitor food prices as well as come up with climate change adaptation programmes for the maintenance of food security in the country.
