Integrated response to disaster needed, Red Cross

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an emergency appeal for Southern Africa on Wednesday. The Federation also warned that the policies of donors, governments and humanitarian agencies would soon lag behind the region's growing challenges. "The interaction of HIV/AIDS, failed health care, poverty and food insecurity had created an unprecedented disaster conventional intervention could not contain," the Federation said in a statement. It appealed for US $10.3 million for Red Cross national society operations in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Regarding the Southern Africa crisis, Alasan Senghore, head of the Federation's Southern Africa delegation in Harare was quoted as saying that "the humanitarian world is deep in uncharted territory and the map from the past will not guide it through the future". "Doing business as usual will not halt this disaster," he added. The appeal would strengthen a Red Cross safety net for 347,000 "extremely vulnerable people" in the region through food security and integrated community care, the Federation said. Programmes would cover essential food needs, health, water and sanitation, HIV/AIDS prevention and economic self-reliance. These programmes would "take over from the one-year Southern Africa Food Security Operation due to end in July", and allow the Federation to transform short-term emergency relief into integrated longer-term programmes, with greater impact on the root causes of a disaster that Senghore characterised as "driving the most vulnerable into a downward spiral of poverty, chronic illness, lack of options and lack of hope". Some 15 million people in six southern African countries were in need of food aid during 2003, mainly due to the impact of drought and HIV/AIDS.