Drought warning issued for Southern Africa

Following weeks of concern over low rainfall and the development of moderate El Nino conditions in Southern Africa, a drought warning has been issued by the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) Drought Monitoring Centre (DMC).

"We have been monitoring data from [SADC] member states and, after comparing it with previous rainfall data, decided that the rainfall was not behaving as expected," Emmanuel Dlamini, coordinator of the DMC told IRIN on Monday.

The worst-affected countries were southern Malawi, Swaziland, southern Mozambique, Lesotho, eastern South Africa, eastern Botswana and part of north western Zambia, with western and north western Zimbabwe critical, Dlamini said.

Poor rainfall and crop failure at the beginning of the year led many of these countries to declare disasters and request urgent food aid.

"It's not critical yet, but if this pattern continues there won't be enough rainfall for crop production," Dlamini said. "Global indicators show lower rainfall but although this is not strong yet, we thought it was something the region should watch."

The centre advised people with weather sensitive activities to start planning ahead for measures they could implement to survive lower rainfall, like adopting crops that need shorter rainfall periods, and preparing for water harvesting.

Agriculture was the sector likely to be most seriously affected by the lower rainfall, but Dlamini urged communities and policy makers to also consider the effects on other sectors of the population.

"They must consider HIV/AIDS because this often affects the breadwinner and if there's no rainfall [for food crops], there's also nobody to provide [money] for the family. We also want disaster management units to start planning for low rainfall now as they often leave their planning to the end of the season," he said.

Health and water sectors also needed to prepare for diseases like cholera which accompanied water shortages.

"If we don't have rain we don't have life," he said. "We must get all sectors involved."

An updated rainfall report would be issued by the unit in January, he said.