STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS ON DISASTER H.E Prof. Arthur Peter Mutharika (January 26, 2015) My fellow Malawians, In early January 2015, heavy rainstorms and floods hit 15 out of the 28 districts in Malawi namely Chikwawa, Nsanje, Phalombe, Zomba, Rumphi, Karonga, Thyolo, Machinga, Mangochi, Ntcheu, Chiradzulu, Mulanje, Balaka, Salima and Blantyre. The Government of Malawi (GoM) estimates that at least 174,000 people have been displaced as their houses had been washed away,or their roofs blown off, or were inundated, or simply collapsed because of water logging conditions. In addition to this, 62 deaths have been reported since the declaration of the Distaster, as well as several injuries, with 153 people still missing. However, these numbers are expected to rise as more information is received and analysed, and rains continue to fall. •Ladies and Gentlemen; Field observations and follow-up rapid assessments by an Inter-Agency assessment team comprising representatives of the Ministry of Health, Department of Disaster Management Affairs in the VPs office ,UNICEF, the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office (UNRCO), the Malawi Police Service, the Ministry of Lands and Housing, the Malawi Red Cross and WFP, demonstrated that the floods have caused severe damage in these districts, including the loss of livestock, the destruction of farmlands, houses, bridges, schools and health facilities, as well as damage to the water supply, irrigation systems, and food storage and processing facilities. These findings were confirmed by the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC), which undertook a second assessment. Entire communities have been cut off from health services, safe water and other critical basic services, rendering women and children particularly vulnerable. In addition, displacement is exacerbating the food security conditions of already vulnerable host families. Affected populations have little or no access to food, shelter and transport. In some areas, the risk of outbreaks of communicable diseases is also high, which is expected to rapidly increase malnutrition, food insecurity as well as maternal and neonatal deaths. •My fellow Malawians During my tour to the affected areas, i have noted that the displacement sites are crowded (35 people live in a family tents made for 8 and more than 600 households camping in one school). There is a lack of basic services such as water, sanitation and hygiene, raising concerns over possible disease outbreaks. There is urgent need of: •Food in all temporary displacement sites •Shelter •Clothing •Water •Hygiene materials (soap) •Kitchen utensils 1/27/2015 22 •Blankets •Plastic sheeting •Construction materials and tools •Latrines •Agricultural inputs for the current season and •Protection services I am grateful to all organizations and individuals, both local and international who have responded quickly to our call for assistance but I still call upon more well wishers to kindly donate to our brother and sisters as the needs are numerous. Since the onset of the flooding, the Government and various partners in-country have been responding to the needs of affected communities. For instance, following reports of initial flooding in Chikwawa, the Government of Malawi, UN agencies, international and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs) and the Malawi Red Cross Society, and well as the private sector, have distributed relief items, including tents, tarpaulins and food, to displaced populations. These, however, can not cover the needs of the displaced population. Therefore there is an acute need for the provision of more relief items to cover gaps arising from increasing numbers of affected people. Unlike previous responses, the current response is expected to take longer, because the displaced populations may have to stay at displacement sites much longer. As such, more resources are required to meet their daily needs for a minimum of three months. Ladies and Gentlemen, Following the declaration of the State of Disaster the National Disaster Preparedness and Relief Committee chaired by the Vice President and comprising of Ministers, Principal Secretaries, senior MDF, Police officials and cooperating NGOs (World Vision, Malawi Red Cross Society) was activated and met on Sunday, January 18 at the Vice President’s office where, among others, the meeting agreed to continue and speed up the search and rescue efforts in the lower shire, intensify food distribution together with World Food Programme (WFP) to save lives by meeting immediate food needs of the people affected by the floods, and engage all preventive measures to avert outbreak of diseases like cholera in camps. The Committee has since established appropriate clusters to manage the relief operations. A national Emergency Operation Centre has been established at the Department of Disaster Management Affairs in order to enhance information flow and coordination. Liaison Officers from the clusters are operating from the Center in collaboration with officials from the UN OCHA. Currently ten clusters are operational. These are Food Security, Agriculture, Health, Nutrition, Education, Protection, Water and Sanitation and Hygiene, Transport and Logistics, Shelter and Camp Management and Coordination and Assessments. These clusters will oversee the implementation of the response under the leadership of the cluster leads and co-leads in-country. Coordination, implementation and monitoring of the response activities will be jointly undertaken through these clusters. Each cluster is led by a relevant government department. At the district level the clusters work with the line ministry, represented at the district level under the charge of a District Commissioner. Senior Malawi Defence Force officers have been placed in each district to commandeer logistics. My fellow Malawians The recent floods have caused a lot of damage and will therefore bring many negative socioeconomic effects to the Malawian economy. The growth for the country is largely driven by agriculture, manufacturing, electricity, water and mining sectors, among others. These have also been adversely affected by the floods, to the extent that the country, is likely to achieve economic growth lower than 5.8 percent projected earlier for 2015 Preliminary assessment shows that the damage caused by the flood disaster to the economy is estimated at K23.9 billion, excluding the cost of the relief programmes currently underway. Around 234 schools were damaged and 181 were being used as relocation sites for displaced people, who have lost their homes in the floods (a total of 415 schools affected). The number is currently at 147, thanks to the donations and distribution of tents. An estimated 200,000 students are not able to attend school due to their schools being flooded or occupied by those who require temporary shelters. Health centres are also damaged and/or lack of personnel and medical supplies to cope with the needs of displaced populations. The Department of Surveys estimates that 63,531 hectares have been submerged by flood waters as of 13 January 2015. It is estimated that around 116,000 farmers country-wide have been affected with 35,000 hectres of cropland impacted. On the basis of available information so far, K5.6 billion worth of Maize, K1.5 billion worth of rice, K320 million worth of groundnuts, K728 million worthy of cotton, and K51.8 million worth of fish has been lost. It is also estimated that a total of K2.9 billion worth of livestock has been lost. Typical rural households rely on sales of agricultural produce and livestock. The washing away of these assets has, therefore, aggravated the food insecurity situation in the economy. Further, this implies there is a loss of agriculture ganyu among the poor households, which is one of the major sources of income for buying food. In this respect, the floods will have a huge impact on household food security during 2015/16 consumption season for the following reasons: 1. Total food production of households will be reduced during the 2014/15 agriculture season unless farmers re-plant their fields. It should also be noted that all the fertiliser that was applied in the affected fields has also been lost. 2. If no replanting is done, households will have less or no harvest at all, hence less food to take them up to the next harvest season; and 3. Considering that other sources of income such as livestock and cash crop have already been affected due to flooding, they will not have income to access food through the markets. In essence, this means that the problem of food insecurity among households is heightened to levels that will put a lot of pressure on the budget, in order to assist the households affected by the floods across the country. In this case, the budget in excess of K3.6 billion will be required for replanting. Concerns of further flooding are high as rains are forecast to continue for some months. Further flooding will hamper relief efforts as more people will become affected and hence require immediate response, thereby spreading thin the response capacity. Further flooding could also hamper access to affected populations, especially those that are still isolated within their communities, thereby slowing the speed of the response. The issue of access to the affected areas is also one which Government will have to look into urgently. Ladies and gentlemen Government and Humanitarian partners have worked together to develop a response plan based on the analysis of the context, immediate humanitarian need and projected needs for the coming months given that it is still early in the rainy season. As a basis for specific sector response plans, overarching strategic priorities have been identified to support effective, and timely humanitarian assistance to populations in need in Malawi. The overall strategic objectives for this response plan are to ensure that affected households receive timely assistance. This assistance is for both immediate life saving as well as to prevent outbreaks of waterborne diseases and malaria. Further to this, all partners should endeavour to also support resumption and continuous access of basic services by the flood affected population. These four priorities will remain valid and continue to guide the activities and projects outlined within specific sector response plans. The Response Plan is seeking US$81 million to address immediate needs of up to 638,000 people who have been affected by the floods. My Government through the Ministry of Finance has released MK500 million under the National Disaster Fund. The United Nations funds totalling US$150,000 are being utilised to strengthen the operation and coordination capacity at district level. This response will focus on the following as priority populations for targeted interventions: •those most affected by floods and those that have lost their crops and livestock as a result of the floods. The plan is also focussing on the following priority sectors: Health; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); •Shelter; Protection; Food Security; Agriculture; Nutrition; Transport and Logistics; and Education. Although the flood impact this year is extensive, most of the flood affected areas are low lying. •Settlement patterns normally follow fertile confluences of rivers or flat fertile areas close to major rivers. This plan will also include aspects of recovery that will incorporate resilience and disaster risk management to ensure future flood impacts are minimized. The plan also supports the resumption of basic livelihood activities, particularly agriculture. This recognises that it is crucial that affected populations should resume their livelihood activities through strengthened recovery and resilience efforts, although these are not costed within this plan. I am confident that we have so far put in place mechanism to handle the disaster and i appeal to local and international donors and other well wishers to continue supporting our efforts in accordance with the response plan. For the long term response, the Ministry of Lands, Housing and urban Development is finalising the National disaster Risk Management Policy. This work was started in 1991 with the enactment of the Disaster Preparedness and Relief Act, which provided the legal and institutional framework for disaster management in the country at National, District, Area and Village level. The Act was however, enacted without a policy. This is why we are still facing numerous challenges, in adopting a proactive and systematic approach to address disasters risks in the country. The policy will guide stakeholders in implementing programmes and activities to effectively address disaster risks and reduce the impact of disasters amongst communities in the country. At the moment the draft Disaster Policy has not yet been discussed by the full Cabinet. It is expected that the policy will be adopted at the next Cabinet meeting. The overall objective of the Policy will be sustainability reduce disaster losses in lives and in the social economic, and environmental assets of individuals, communities and the nation; as well as create an enabling framework for the establishment of a comprehensive disaster risk management system for Malawi. It is my sincere hope that this policy will assist us in dealing with some of the current problems which we are facing especially issues of relocation of people. As you may be aware, some of the problems could be reduced if we removed people from the disaster prone areas to some places safer. I would like to request the Ministry of Lands and housing to ensure that wide consultations have been made with the concerned parties, so we have a common ground for the implementation of this policy. We needed it yesterday. Lastly ladies and gentlemen, I wish to once again thank all the people who are working so hard to help our dear brothers and sisters in need in the affected areas. We have demonstrated that we are indeed sons and daughters of Malawi by holding hands to help our relatives in need. Government will ensure that all the assistance that has been received goes to the right beneficiaries and will not tolerate Misuse of such assistance I also wish to thanks all who have assisted in various ways, local citizens, the international community, and all well wishers for the help rendered. The task before us is mammoth but let us all work together to help one another but also to rebuild Malawi. I thank you for your attention, God bless you, God bless Malawi.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:04:58 +0000
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