Regional Office for Southern Africa
http://ochaonline.un.org/rosaIn 2008, for a second consecutive year, the Southern Africa region witnessed a combination of floods and cyclones, which battered six countries in the region and affected nearly 900,000 people in Angola, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia and Zimbabwe. As of late 2008, more than eight million people from eight countries in the region are facing food insecurity and will require assistance until March 2009. Well over five million of these are in Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and southern Mozambique, where severe drought exacerbated by governance issues in Zimbabwe in particular, has led to significant crop production deficits. Numbers are expected to peak over the November 2008 to March 2009 lean season. Minor shocks, such as erratic rainfall during the critical harvest season, could be enough to trigger humanitarian crises.
The region remains at the epicentre of the global HIV and AIDS crisis, where countries continue to battle an AIDS epidemic affecting up to 10 per cent of the adult population and an estimated 25 million who are infected with HIV.
Displacement challenges were most keenly felt in Zimbabwe and South Africa. In Zimbabwe, the continuing economic decline and contested March 2008 election outcome resulted in the internal and cross border displacement of a significant number of people. The rapidly deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe – with a failing health system and an outbreak of cholera – is reaching regional dimensions. There is potential for a large outflow of Zimbabweans and the spread of the disease in the region. It is now estimated that there are more than two million vulnerable Zimbabweans and others displaced within the region. In South Africa, violence against foreign nationals and South Africans claimed the lives of more than 50 people and resulted in the displacement of nearly 40,000 persons.
In 2009, the Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) will ensure coordinated support to fifteen countries; Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Reunion, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Office will support the Inter-agency Standing Committee (IASC) partners while maintaining a high level of surge capacity in the region. A ROSA team of humanitarian professionals is on standby to respond to sudden-onset disasters. To promote all pillars of humanitarian reform, especially clusters, in the region and to implement IASC policies generally, ROSA will work with regional partners to ensure the appointment of cluster coordinators. ROSA will support the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the area of disaster management and facilitate national level preparedness and capacity building with governments and humanitarian partners.
Throughout 2009, ROSA will engage in the monitoring and advocating of longer-term humanitarian and development challenges including migration and the compounded vulnerabilities arising from climate change, and rising food and fuel prices. Partners will have the opportunity to address these key response and preparedness issues in the Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Support Office (RIACSO), a regional group of IASC member organisations, donors and governments.
Recognizing the importance of stronger humanitarian information management and the need to support more evidence-based advocacy and resource mobilization, ROSA will continue the expansion of information management capacities to better support multiple coordination efforts simultaneously. The regional office will strengthen its mapping and data preparedness through existing regional information sharing mechanisms amongst United Nations agencies and UN Country Teams, donors, NGOs, the media and OCHA.
The regional office will support the drafting process of preparedness plans and development of needs assessment frameworks consolidating core information on humanitarian situations into an accessible and meaningful format. Additionally, ROSA will seek to strengthen a system-wide understanding of humanitarian financing mechanisms – in particular, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), flash appeals and consolidated appeals, thus ensuring more predictable and transparent funding applications from the field.
Key Objectives, Outputs and Indicators
