Rainy conditions to persist across entire Sadc region
MORE rain and possible flooding is expected in most parts of the Sadc region in the coming three months, the Sadc Climate Services Centre says.
Regional forecasters say the January to March 2017 outlook is largely going to be for wet conditions with chances of localised, episodic, flash floods.
“The bulk of contiguous (sharing a common border) Sadc region and Mauritius will have greater likelihood of normal to above normal rainfall in the next three months,” said the regional climate services centre in its latest update.
“There will be chances of localised, episodic, flash floods at times as is already happening in some places. During the same period, normal to below normal rainfall conditions will dominate mostly over eastern DRC, Tanzania, extreme northern Zambia, northern parts of Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar and Seychelles.”
Sadc Climate Services Centre co-ordinator Bradwell Garanganga said the December 2016 to February 2017 outlook is largely still consistent with the SARCOF-20 statement issued in Harare last year.
The recent intensification of seasonal rainfall in some parts of the Sadc region has contributed to some short-term improvements in water and pasture availability.
Sadc member States declared last year’s El-Nino-induced drought a regional disaster, paving the way for donor agencies to assist in mobilising US$2,8 billion required for food aid for millions of people facing hunger.
Drought in the 2015-2016 cropping season left up to 40 million people in need of food assistance across the region, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Out of this, 23 million required immediate assistance.
Zimbabwe was one of the worst affected countries by the driest year in decades facing southern Africa — including Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa.
Last year, the UN’s World Food Programme said about 16 million people in Southern Africa faced hunger due to poor harvests in 2015, caused by El Nino weather conditions.
The impact of the drought that swept across the Sadc region in the past two years has been felt across all sectors including agriculture, food and nutrition security, tourism, energy, health, water and sanitation and education.
A majority of small-scale farmers struggled to produce enough food to feed their families owing to the drought that ravaged most parts of Zimbabwe.
Dam levels have dropped to their worst levels in decades while pasture and water scarcity decimated 643 000 livestock with an estimated value of up to US$1,9 billion.
But good rains have brought cheer to most people across the entire region despite floods killing people and destroying crops, livestock and assets running into thousands of dollars.
Forecasters say there will be greater likelihood of normal to above normal rainfall over southern parts of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, northern South Africa, eastern Botswana and Swaziland and Lesotho.
“The inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is very active and centered over the eastern parts of Sadc region. This will favour mostly the eastern part of the region and Island States with rains from January 09 to 30 2017,” the Sadc Climate Services Centre said in its latest update.
“The ITCZ is going to favour more rains over the diagonal axis covering northern Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and south Madagascar, with the centred active rain pattern over the Mozambique Channel Ocean. Suppressed rainfall conditions will predominate over DRC, Angola, Tanzania, parts of eastern Botswana, extreme north of South Africa, south Mozambique and Zimbabwe.”
Climate experts say the long-term mean for January-February-March rainfall shows maxima of above 600 millimetres over much of Malawi, Zambia, extreme southern of DRC, central and northern Mozambique as well as Mauritius and central Madagascar.
The remainder of the region receives rainfall less than 300 millimetres gradually decreasing south-westwards to southwest South Africa and Namibia where the mean rainfall is below 100 millimetres.
Despite the improved rainfall outlook, humanitarian agencies say millions still face hunger in Southern Africa as the hunger crisis enters its peak. They say millions still need food assistance to avert starvation.
“We have warned for months that this food crisis deteriorates by the day. We are now approaching the peak of hunger, but international funding still doesn’t match the enormous needs,” said Michelle Carter, CARE’s deputy regional director for Southern Africa recently.
The humanitarian agency said there was a funding gap of US$550 million to reach people in desperate need of assistance.
Development experts say the next harvest is not expected until March and after the failure of two consecutive rainy seasons, farmers have little to survive on.
The El Niño-induced drought which ravaged the entire Sadc region is said to have disproportionately affected women and children. WE meet again, yet on another Sunday, like any other when undoubtedly you find my name and face in each and every weekly publication of this mostly read press print. Perhaps you are on your way to the synagogue which varies based on whom you worship, we all have connotations of who our God is, but Sunday seems to be a popular day of Christian worship. Please say hello to Jesus for me, I quit that routine a long time ago when I decided to boycott the seminary. Do not mind my religious opinions, liberalism has taken the best of me, too much access to information has “defiled” my conventionality, but don’t worry; there are worse people than me. Talk to any D.Phil or Professor, Okot P’ Bitek is their point of reference, he could not understand why there was a white man hanging on the stake in a building and they were told to worship him. According to P’ Bitek this was a sign of defeat. To Ngugi, Harambee was a symbol of oppression. My mzukulu, Cain Ginyilitshe Mathema, says at the age of nine he did not understand why there was only ukhulu uJesu and not ukhulu uGinyilitshe. To him this was not logical and fair. Like Marechera, he had to run away from that religious house of hunger. However, truth be told, the creator, uMvelinqangi is alive. He is the root and to him are routes. So today is a day of worship and sharing the truth. Therefore nothing, but the truth shall be said.
My fingers have been itchy to type this all week, but fear grapples me because I think it’s an overly sensitive issue. On the day of his arrest on the mount Olive, Jesus said to his disciples “umoya uyavuma, kodwa inyama iyala” meaning, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, this is exactly what I am feeling. I am compelled to write about this but I fear for my flesh, lest I be battered in these sometimes fearsome streets of Bulawayo because I tempered with some people’s egos. If I had been strong enough to finish the remaining few years of my seminary life, I could be at a parish today, in one of the monumental missions delivering a homily and leading all the rites of a Sunday mass, well, like we sing at my church, “iNkosi ingithumile, ukuba ngishumayeli vangeli, ithi yona, akusini elingikhethileyo, kodwa ngomusa wami, yimi engilikhethileyo.”
My countrymen, over the past 36 years our political struggle has been to reclaim our nationhood following our triumphant dislocation of the colonial regime. Indeed, we have tussled colonial hangovers that we still have not knocked out, we have fought to discover our post-independence identities at individual, regional right up to national level. We have suffered the brunt of the 1992 famine that had us eat the yellow maize meal we called “iKenya” repeatedly in 2002. However, it was less reek than the previous time, we have lived through the fuel shortages of 2002, food scarcity of 2005, and hyperinflation of our Zim Dollar. Then Dr Gideon Gono, the RBZ Governor slashed zeros and formalised the multicurrency system which had been hostage to illicit forex dealers. On the other wild side of things courtesy of the GNU; the “Johnny come late” to politics opposition was all in wining and dining. Some for the first time were privileged to become lovers of pink champagne and forgot their constituencies. In Bulawayo in particular, ethnicity politics was hyped with the growth of sponsored nation dismembering civic society.
This is not something new per se if you still remember the tribal fundamentalist Paul Siwela of the Mthwakazi Liberation Front. After years in the trenches Siwela resurfaced in 2008 lobbying for the halving of Zimbabwe along tribal essentialist terms underpinned on a factually misplaced and emotionally exaggerated Ndebele victimhood. To this day, Siwela’s protégés are headlining the social media with their Mthwakazi restoration agenda. Truly, we cannot reject, denounce or stifle political dissent, but surely we can problematise ideas of this political route and its aspirations to dichotomise Zimbabwe using ethnicity. However, ethnicity ought to be a unifying denominator of our divine ordained national plurality from the day the maker of the heavens said “Let there be Zimbabwe.”
Is ethnic essentialism canvassed as political dissent healthy for Matabeleland? The dominant argument in the camp is continuous reference to the royal King Mzilikazi’s legacy and his conquest of the land. There is glorification of how he owned the land and the harmony he brought. In that argument, there is appropriative claim of the country and why it belongs to Mthwakazi. This on its own is argumentative and we can debate