By Dr. Donald ZuluZambia is currently witnessing one of the worst droughts in recent history with about 84 out of 115 districts severely affected and 1 million out of 2.2 million ha of cropped land registered crop failures. It is for this reason that the Republican President Hakainde Hichilema declared a state of national disaster and emergence.
Kudos to the President for making this declaration early as it triggered and set in motion various forms of mitigation measures from government and other cooperating partners.Short-term measure! I implore Government and cooperating partners to ramp up the distribution of relief food to hard-hit rural areas. Remember, most rural households rely entirely on agriculture for livelihood.
They normally deplete their food reserves harvested from previous rainy season by November/December. Hence, December, January and February tend to be typical hunger months in rural areas. Most rural households start consuming fresh food from their fields by January. Unfortunately, some hard-hit areas like Eastern Zambia only received first rains in January, driving rural households into desperation. Buying food is often a remote option for these households as their main source of income is from sale of agricultural produce. Long term measures! On the 12th March 2024, News Diggers reported that the President lamented that “….if we had been able to advise our farmers a little bit better on a timely basis, I think we would have ameliorated the damage to the crop that we have experienced”. I agree with His Excellency.
Indeed, the best solution to extreme weather events such as drought is having an effective and efficient early warning system. An effective and efficient early warning system produces reliable, accurate, timely, locally specific and downscaled weather forecasts accompanied by meaningful and practical farmer advisories for preparedness and adaptation. With climate change here to stay, we need a robust early warning system in the country. To have this, we need to strengthen four essential elements of a robust early warning system: 1) disaster risk knowledge, 2) detection, monitoring, analysis and forecasting, 3) warning dissemination and communication and 4) preparedness and response capabilities. How good is our early warning system in Zambia? The statement by His Excellency above shades some light in the state of our early warning system.
A study conducted last year on this topic in the country revealed the following weaknesses in our early warning system: Limited number of weather stations in the country to support the production of accurate weather forecasts;Weather forecasts are sometimes inaccurate and unreliable;Most farmers and some district agricultural staff rarely receive weather forecasts;Lack of locally specific weather forecasts;Inadequate infrastructure (e.g. servers) to support the collection and storage of weather data;Understaffing at Meteorological Department (MET);Limited funding to MET;Weak cooperation and working framework between MET and Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) with respect to flow of weather information.
Limited interaction if any between MET and district agricultural staff;MoA doesn’t have a designated position in the establishment mandated with receiving and processing weather information into actionable agronomic advice for distribution to provinces, districts and farmers;As the President recently remarked that his Government “will use drought to change Zambia forever”, I hereby re-echo the following recommendations (spelling out possibly what both MET and MoA are already addressing) that can contribute to changing our early warning system in Zambia forever: Increase the number of automated weather stations in the country to the recommended number per unit area. This will improve weather prediction and will lead to the production of reliable and accurate weather forecasts.
Recruit staff to fill vacant positions in MET.MET should partner with MoA to utilise the country-wide presence of the MoA structures (block and camp extension officers) to assist in monitoring weather stations.Procure the necessary additional infrastructure needed to support collection, storage and processing of weather data at national and local level.Strengthen the cooperation and working framework between MET and MoA with respect to production, downscaling and dissemination of weather information.
MoA should review the establishment and establish a permanent position at headquarters for receiving, downscaling and dissemination of weather information to provincial and district offices. This permanent position should seat on the multi-sectoral framework charged with production, downscaling, production of actionable agronomic recommendations and dissemination of weather information and agronomic recommendations. Clear delineation of roles for all stakeholders in the framework is needed. Use all available information channels such as phones (SMS and WhatsApp), and local radios to disseminate downscaled weather information and agronomic recommendations. The framework to work on bureaucracy “red-tape” for efficient information flow.Increase funding to MET and MoA to improve early warning system. Train district staff and farmers to improve on response capacity.Finally, for all this to work, the work ethic of civil servants will need to be top Early warning system is an indispensable tool for climate adaptation, providing timely information, enhancing preparedness, and building resilience to climate-related hazards. Investing in robust early warning system infrastructure and fostering collaboration among stakeholders are essential steps toward building a climate-resilient Zambia.
The author is a Lecturer at the Copperbelt University in the School of Natural Resources.
