CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Extreme weather attributed to the El Niño phenomenon is causing an increase in hunger in several countries including Zambia and Afghanistan, the U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday, calling on donors for desperately needed aid.
El Nino is a natural, temporary and episodic warming of part of the Pacific Ocean that is changing global weather patterns, and studies say climate change is making it stronger.
Tens of millions of people in southern Africa depend on the weather to grow food to feed themselves.
In a statement, WFP warned that southern Africa was the “epicenter of the crisis” after a cycle of floods and droughts ravaged the region over the past three years. Three countries, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, have been hardest hit and have seen between 40 and 80% of their main maize crop disappear this season due to drought, affecting millions, the UN Food Agency said.
The WFP said executive director Cindy McCain had traveled to Zambia and seen how “severe drought has wiped out harvests in a region where 70% of the population depends on agriculture for survival.”
“We cannot ask millions of people to wait for the next harvest season – a year from now – to put food on their tables,” McCain said in a statement. “These families need our support today as we help build a more resilient future.”
The WFP said its “teams have begun to respond, but $409 million is needed over six months to help 4.8 million people in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”
Other countries, including Congo and Afghanistan, are facing similar challenges due to changing weather conditions that have led to crop destruction, livestock deaths and displacement, increasing hunger, the agency said in a separate statement.
This is because hunger crises caused by conflicts in Gaza and Sudan are already increasing the agency’s aid capacity.
The WFP’s appeal for help came days after the regional Southern African Development Community issued a plea for assistance following a special virtual meeting of leaders and government officials to discuss the impact of the extreme weather.
In a joint statement, southern African countries said the region needed $5.5 billion to help more than 61 million people.
There had been a “multifaceted and cascading impact of the El Niño-induced drought and floods across multiple sectors,” the regional bloc said, noting how it had caused other problems, such as contributing to large and deadly outbreaks of the water caused cholera. disease. Countries that rely on hydroelectric power stations, such as Zambia, are struggling to produce enough electricity due to drought.
In addition to El Niño, the southern African region has recently seen a series of tropical cyclones that scientists say have likely become stronger and wetter due to human-induced climate change and the rise in global temperatures.
Although the African continent contributes the least to climate change, it is expected to suffer the most from it. Poorer countries are generally not as well equipped to deal with the consequences.
Even before the floods and droughts, food insecurity and malnutrition were at alarming levels in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia and humanitarian aid had stalled due to shortages in aid financing, the WFP said.
The three countries have all declared national disasters over this year’s drought, and others have given equally grim assessments.
The United Nations humanitarian agency said this month that about half of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people needed “life-saving and life-sustaining” assistance because of the drought.
Last week, the non-profit organization Action Against Hunger warned that “a hunger crisis could be imminent” in Kenya in East Africa after catastrophic floods displaced more than 250,000 people.
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