Mozambique Storm Season 2024
2024-04 Factsheet
Highlights
- The weather events of the rainy/cyclonic season, which spanned from October 3, 2023, to April 1, 2024, affected more than 197K people (39K families). This included over 5.5K houses that were partially destroyed, 1.7K that were completely damaged, and 31K that were flooded, resulting in 146 fatalities.
- The cluster participated in a rapid intersectoral assessment in the province of Inhambane, in collaboration with the WASH and education sectors. During this assessment, 10 communities across 2 districts were visited.
- Local organizations also conducted needs assessments in Zambezia and Maputo due to the impact of heavy in-season rains.
- In response to the impact of Tropical Storm Filipo, the cluster actively promoted preparation and response measures. Cluster partners carried out emergency distributions in all provinces affected by the event, including Sofala, Inhambane, Gaza, and Maputo.
- The development of these actions was facilitated by a close relationship with district and provincial authorities, as well as community leaders. This facilitated access to the affected communities and aided in the identification and registration of affected families.
- For this rainy season, the cluster updated its needs assessment forms to include questions that consider gender issues and community participation.
NFI
Shelter
Need analysis
The main needs arose as a result of strong winds and rains, either due to the impact of Tropical Storm Filipo or isolated heavy rains. Damage to ceilings and walls with a risk of collapse, as well as the loss of non-food items, primarily for sleeping such as blankets, mats and mosquito nets were due to wetting during the heavy rains that accompanied the storm and items for storing food and water were the main needs identified during the season. Local cluster partners working in the province of Zambezia identified that there are still families who were unable to recover from the impacts of CT Freddy in 2023 and were again affected by this year’s rains and gusts of wind, facing challenges in reinforcing their homes. In the province and city of Maputo, the impact was more severe due to urban flooding caused by intense rains in short periods of time, resulting in a large number of displaced people.
People affected in Maputo who were displaced from their homes stayed in tents provided by the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD). Their main needs were non-food items that were lost in the flood. The Government also requested support to the humanitarian actors providing family tents, tarps, plastic rolls, blankets and mats.
Needs assessments were conducted with government focal points at the community level, community leaders, coordinators of local risk reduction committees, and other representatives of local organizations.
The main challenges in data collection were associated with the fact that the people at community level, who prepared the lists of those affected were unaware of the need to include key data on the type of impact in the records. In these cases, the humanitarian teams supported by suggesting how to add these questions.
Response
The response actions developed by the cluster partners primarily involved the distribution of key non-food items, including mats, kitchen kits, blankets, mosquito nets, and solar lamps. Tarps were also distributed as shelter support. During the first quarter of the year, these response actions were led by IOM, reaching 4,750 people (1,720 in Sofala and 3,030 in Inhambane) and CARE, reaching 741 people in Inhambane.
The selection of target communities was based on the results of needs assessments carried out in close coordination with local authorities and various community leaders.
It’s important to highlight that during the reported period, only 6% of the affected people were assisted (according to the partners’ reports). This was due to the lack of financing opportunities that could have enabled the cluster partners to increase their capacity to respond to emergencies.
IOM, CARE and the Mozambique reported activities planned to reach more 3,608 people, including assistance in Gaza and Maputo City and Province.
Gaps / challenges
The main challenges faced during this period were linked to the following:
Lack of financing to scale the response: No specific projects were developed or financed to respond to the tropical storm or the rain emergency. It is highlighted that the coverage of needs generated by natural disasters, despite the advocacy carried out by the sector, was not included in the HNRP 2024. The lack of resources also had the consequence that organizations/agencies focused their actions on the distribution of NFIs already existing in their stocks, and not, for example, on the repair/reconstruction of houses affected by the events.
Lack of presence of actors in the Province and City of Maputo: Considering that more than 90,000 people were affected by intense rains and consequent floods during the month of March, there were no response actions carried out by the cluster partners.
Access to affected communities: Due to the flooding generated by the passage of Tropical Storm Filipo and subsequent intense rains, the development of needs assessments in some affected areas was prevented by the lack of access roads. To overcome this challenge, constant monitoring of the situation was carried out together with local authorities, to be able to advance to those areas when the roads were enabled.
Determination of people affected by location: One of the main challenges was accessing accurate information on the number of people affected. During the first two weeks after the impact of Tropical Storm Filipo, many gaps in the information, or notable differences, were evident according to the source, even from the official ones. From the coordination of the different clusters as well as from OCHA, there was a lot of insistence and support to the local national authorities and at the provincial level to achieve good processing, analysis, and validation of the impact figures.
