Multinational - Gender-Transformative Response to Drought in Southern Africa

Management hereby submits this report and recommendation on a proposed grant of UA 2,000,000to United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification to finance the project on “Gender-transformative Resilience to Drought in Transition States in Southern Africa”. The three project countries have faced recurrent droughts in the past decades affecting millions of people who directly depend on the land for their food and livelihoods. The latest drought (2020-21) in the southern region of Madagascar affected 1.3 million population. More than a million people affected by the droughts in 2018 (South, Southeast region -1.26 million) and in 2016 (Androy, Anosy, Atsimo Andrefana –1.14 million) in Madagascar. Similarly, in Mozambique, 2.3 million people were affected by the 2016 drought in Maputo, Gaza, Inhambane, Sofal and Tete. Zimbabwe experienced another significant drought in December 2019, after 1992’s worst drought in the country, which ignited the worst hunger crisis. Livestock losses have reached 2.2 million people in urban areas and 5.5 million in rural ones. 7.7 million people plunged into hunger and WFP estimated that 2.3 million people in about 15 towns and cities are not only just food insecure but are falling below the poverty line.