ABSTRACT
Introduction Over the past years there has been considerable investment in the development of disaster preparedness and management systems in southern Africa. SADC has funded and facilitated training programs, and a number of agencies have supported the establishment of structures mandated to coordinate the preparedness for and response to natural and human disasters ranging from droughts and flooding to civil uprisings.Food security issues have been a leading concern among governments and the donor community. Almost all countries in southern Africa have an Early Warning System (EWS) that predicts food production, evaluates trade flows, and then assesses the likely food situation at the national (and in some cases regional) level. Governments usually make assessments of likely production levels at various points in the growing season, starting at post-planting and extending through to early harvest assessments. Such evaluations may be combined with market price information to assess stresses and shortages in the food system. More sophisticated systems may even include household food security data from the post-harvest period. In some countries, government organizations have a specific mandate under exceptional circumstances (e.g., when food shortages are predicted) to import foods or impose trade restrictions. Such responses have been increasingly less frequent since market liberalization policies were adopted. Nevertheless, they can still be found, for example, in Tanzania, where the
Food Security Department still imposes export bans under extreme circumstances (Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, 1997).The main thrust of food security assistance is almost always to assess the need for intervention after there is evidence that the harvest has been poor. This could involve intervention at the national level, or delivery of food assistance to insecure households. The 1997/98 El Nino event posed an unprecedented challenge to governmental organizations and structures because the availability of seasonal climate forecasts raised the possibility of providing advice and taking actions before the production season started, thereby potentially reducing the possibility or extent of a poor harvest.This chapter examines how national public sector organizations rose to this challenge in 1997. The study concentrates on actions taken by the governments of Namibia, Zambia, and Malawi prior to mid-November, when forecast information was available and the actual weather conditions for the growing season were still uncertain. Although responses extended to areas of water, energy, and health services, the focus of this chapter is limited to the agricultural sector. A number of questions are considered:
• What could governments reasonably have been expected to do in response to the seasonal climate forecast? • What plans and actions did government organizations actually take? • What constraints did government organizations face? • Were their responses effective in hindsight, given the actual seasonal outcome?
