Maputo, 1 Sep – Mozambique’s relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD), is working on strategies to mitigate the effects of the El Nino climate phenomenon, which is expected to cause severe drought in southern Mozambique.
According to INGD chairperson Luísa Meque, speaking on Thursday at a meeting of the INGD Coordinating Council, held in the southern district of Matutuíne, the design of the contingency plan, a vital tool for controlling extreme events, is still dependent on the climate forecast, which in principle will be known in September.
“The INGD has decided to position itself on the ground to anticipate risky phenomena. The information available indicates that the coming period could be characterized by severe and prolonged droughts, compromising agricultural production, a situation that could undermine food and nutritional security in the most vulnerable areas”, Meque said.
She added that the Coordinating Council aims to discuss aspects linked to the institution’s improved intervention in times of emergency.
“With regard to El Nino, we, as an institution, have been working for a month and a half and we already have some anticipated actions in the southern provinces, which are the ones that are going to suffer the most. We know that El Nino is a slow-progressing event and we’re bringing forward the intervention”, she said.
Meque acknowledged that the country is moving into the next rainy season with constraints in terms of conclusively surveying and repairing the damage from the previous season, which claimed more than 300 lives and affected more than 1.3 million people, leaving behind a desolate trail of destruction of public and private infrastructure, including flooded homes and farmland.
“We’re really worried because we’d like to enter the next rainy season while finalizing all the damage, but it’s difficult due to the situation our country is going through. But little by little we have been making efforts to recover some infrastructures”, she explained.
Meque also delivered improved seeds to the Ponta d’Ouro Comprehensive Primary School, as part of the introduction of techniques for sustainable and resilient agriculture, as well as handing over preparedness kits to a new Ponta d’Ouro Disaster Risk Management Committee, recently created as part of the improvement of early warning conditions.
(AIM)
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