The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has declared a regional disaster and launched an appeal for $2.4 billion to support humanitarian needs and disaster response recovery for the drought-affected region.

Lt General Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama, President of Republic Botswana and the Chairperson of SADC made the announcement on 26 July in Gaborone, Botswana, calling on the international community to provide assistance to affected member states.

“The 2016 regional food security and vulnerability assessments indicate that the number of food insecure people in the region is about 40 million, which is about 14% of SADC’s total population,” he said.

According to Khama, the region was largely able to cope with the drought in 2014/15 through its own means, but the severity of the 2015/16 drought has overwhelmed the disaster preparedness capacity in most of the affected member states.

The $2.4 billion appeal therefore augments the on-going efforts by SADC member states and covers all relevant sectors of the region’s economy to enable a holistic approach to the drought. It aims to address immediate humanitarian needs as well as long term developmental and resilience-building requirements.

Responding to the appeal, the United States of America pledged $300 million, while the United Kingdom pledged £72 million and the European Union a further €60 million towards humanitarian assistance.