The President of Mozambique, H.E. Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, announced that donors had pledged a total of USD 1.2 billion to help rebuild areas and infrastructure destroyed across the country by cyclones Idai and Kenneth. The Government met with international development and donor partners at a conference in Beira on 31 May and 1 June to discuss recovery needs and funding requirements for the country following the cyclones.
In his closing remarks, President Nyusi thanked donors and development partners “for saving Mozambican lives.” The two-day conference drew around 700 participants from the public and private sector, international organizations and civil society to Beira, the port city that suffered some of the worst destruction from Cyclone Idai in March.
Mr Olman Serrano, Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to Mozambique, said: “It is encouraging to witness the commitment of the international community to support the restoration of agricultural production in the affected areas. Together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, FAO will implement activities to re-establish the agrarian sector and rebuild the resilience and food security of vulnerable farmers, fishers and pastoralists in Mozambique.”
FAO has conducted extensive early and post-disaster needs assessments across the central provinces to measure the extent of the damage to productive, agricultural and fisheries infrastructure and assets. To support the resilience of affected households, the Organization continues to deliver agricultural inputs such as seeds and tools to ease immediate food and nutrition needs, ensure the main winter harvest is not missed and diversify livelihoods to promote recovery and build resilience to future shocks.
More than 600 people were killed when Cyclone Idai lashed the central provinces in Mozambique with heavy winds and rain, which arrived on the heels of floods just weeks before. An estimated 400 000 people were displaced, over 715 000 hectares of crops destroyed and 1.85 million people left in need of humanitarian assistance. Just a month later, Cyclone Kenneth crashed into the northern province of Cabo Delgado, flattening entire villages, killing around 45 people and causing yet more destruction to fishing, farming and pastoral livelihoods.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for a “generous response” from the international community and said, “This is the time to translate into concrete gestures the solidarity with a country that has suffered one of the worst environmental disasters ever experienced in Africa.” He stressed that while the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated USD 24 million to Mozambique, to face the scale of the disaster vast additional resources are needed. In order to strengthen the response to the tragedy, the UN has launched an emergency humanitarian appeal of USD 282 million, which remains deeply underfunded.
The Government of Mozambique is calling for USD 3.2 billion in funding for post-cyclone reconstruction. Conference pledges and consensus-building discussions were informed by a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), a comprehensive technical study conducted and led by the Government of Mozambique and supported by the UN, the European Union, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
Source : Fao
