Angola Appeal

The worst drought in 40 years, insufficient food consumption and rising food prices have forced an estimated 3.8 million people in Angola into food insecurity. With lower-than-normal purchasing power and the coming lean season, poor households in Cunene, Huíla and Namibe provinces will continue to face Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Phase 3, or "crisis" levels of food insecurity, from August 2022 to January 2023.

Drought in Angola is protracted and continues to worsen. It comes on the back of three consecutive failed agricultural harvesting seasons with crop losses of 40 per cent, and these losses have negatively impacted family and household income and livelihoods. Additionally, more than 4,600 internally displaced people are reported in the Ombadja and Cahama municipalities in Cunene Province, including 1,902 returnees (900 children) in the Kalueque camp returned from cross-border migration into Namibia. Currently, 1.2 million people face water scarcity and will, as a result, be exposed to compromised water, sanitation and hygiene conditions. C limate change -driven drought conditions exacerbate this situation. Most water points in the drought-affected communes are nonoperational. This is a critical gap and the need to walk long distances for household water increases vulnerability to gender-based violence and heightens other protection risks (particularly for women and girls, who are tasked primarily with this responsibility); it also increases school dropout among boys due to transhumance.

Despite climatic improvements in 2022, locust invasions in southern Angola and erratic rains leading to poor harvests continued to severely affect access to food in rural areas, while economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has remained slow. Food insecurity remains high, even in urban areas. Humanitarian assistance is still necessary to prevent acute malnutrition and the subsequent high risk of death among children. Severe wasting is projected to affect 120,000 children aged 6-59 months in 2022, with 81,199 children already admitted for treatment between January and July in the provinces supported by UNICEF.

The Twenty-sixth Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum forecast for Angola for the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 is good. Analyses from local provincial government authorities of the drought situation and the outlook into the first quarter of 2023 remain less optimistic, however. Local authorities are already reporting increased pockets of food insecurity and early signs of transhumance in some parts of Cunene Province. Drought conditions remain severe and will likely contribute to further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the south, particularly due to poor harvest, limited access to food, economic shocks and the slow economic recovery from the pandemic, along with a significantly underfunded humanitarian response.

UNICEF’s humanitarian strategy in Angola is underpinned by the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action and focuses on supporting the Government to implement coherent and principled humanitarian action while strengthening the humanitarian-development nexus and improving resilience. The strategy is formulated with a multi-hazard focus, emphasizing preparedness/anticipatory actions, response, resilience to climate shocks and systems strengthening. It is based on an analysis of risks, economic shocks and conflict. In drought, flood and displacement crises UNICEF delivers life-saving interventions to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of children and women. In health emergencies, UNICEF prioritizes emergency vaccination, diagnosis, case management, risk communication and community engagement and infection prevention and control for health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). In Angola, UNICEF leads WASH, nutrition, education and child protection sector coordination and co-leads the health sector coordination with the World Health Organization.

In 2023, humanitarian action will be delivered through life-saving nutrition, health, HIV, WASH, education and child protection interventions, including cross-cutting areas such as social and behaviour change, gender-based violence, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse and accountability to affected populations. Humanitarian interventions will be child-centred, targeting the most vulnerable populations, including children and women, and focusing on co-location of services for improved humanitarian outcomes.

Vulnerable children and their caregivers will be targeted with life-saving nutrition services. 25 Children with diarrhoea, measles and pneumonia will receive treatment and referral services. Access to antenatal care visits, postpartum care for newborns and mothers, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and response to disease outbreaks and routine immunization in drought-affected areas will be ensured. WASH interventions will focus on guaranteeing access to sufficient and safe WASH services and increasing climate resilience to mitigate water stress and shocks. Education in emergencies will ensure continuous access to education, learning recovery, training and distribution of critical learning supplies for school-aged children most affected by humanitarian crises. Child protection interventions will focus on the prevention and mitigation of increased vulnerabilities related to gender-based violence in emergencies and protection risks, particularly for women and girls.

UNICEF works with the Government of Angola to ensure coordinated humanitarian action for children and supports the alignment of humanitarian interventions with government priorities and the national drought response plan. UNICEF maintains an operational and programmatic field presence in the south of Angola, with humanitarian programme activities in five provinces. Raising the profile of the situation of children in Angola remains intrinsic to UNICEF's strategy and resource mobilization.