The African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a US$685,000 grant to strengthen Zimbabwe’s capacity to manage disaster risks, including droughts, floods and tropical cyclones.
The grant was approved by the ADF board on Wednesday and will come through Africa Development Bank’s (AfDB) Africa Disaster Risk Financing (ADRiFi) programme.
The grant will cover training for various national agencies involved in disaster risk management and financing and contingency planning as part of the ADRiFi project, designed to enhance the response of regional member countries to climate disasters and promote innovative disaster risk finance instruments, such as disaster risk insurance.
It will also benefit populations at risk of exposure to extreme drought events, particularly smallholder farmers and vulnerable rural communities. ADF is the concessionary lending arm of the African Development Bank Group.
In collaboration with AfDB, the African Risk Capacity, a specialised agency of the African Union, will provide an in-kind contribution for training estimated at around US$320,000. The project will run for two years, starting from March 2020.
AfDB country manager for Zimbabwe, Damoni Kitabire, said extreme weather events such as prolonged dry spells, droughts, floods, and tropical cyclones have affected agricultural production and disrupted livelihoods of rural Zimbabwe.
“Coupled with harsh economic challenges, these extreme weather events increase household vulnerability, food insecurity, chronic poverty, and malnutrition across the country,” Kitabire told the board.
In March last year, Zimbabwe was hit by Cyclone Idai, which caused damage to infrastructure and livelihoods in several rural communities.
The drought, worsened by the unfavourable economic conditions in the country, is estimated to have exposed 5.5 million people in rural areas and about 3m urban dwellers to extreme vulnerability and food insecurity in the first half of 2020.
