1. Regional Outlook 6 September 2016 Slide1: Outline
1) Drivers of humanitarian needs in the region
2) their impact: food security, displacement, protection of civilians and disease outbreaks
3) challenges to the response: underfunding and access
4) Key messages

2. Drivers of humanitarian needs: more frequent and intense climate shocks and conflict (protracted and new)
The effects of El Niño have come at a time when there is a downturn in the global economic situation, which has deteriorated conditions further.
El Nino – primary driver of hum need in Eastern and Southern Africa are suffering from their worst drought in over a decade as a result. This is not a unique event and it is becoming the new normal - The frequency and intensity of El Niño events have increased since the 1990’s. Since 1981/1982 the region has experienced more than 10 El Niño events.
Historic evidence suggests that the humanitarian needs during an La Nina year following an EL Nino are the highest – as the compound effect of cumulative shocks has eroded resilience and left many more vulnerable.
Conflict: a key driver of humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa : In the last 50 year there has never been a year without conflict in the Horn of Africa. .All countries are either in conflict or border a country in conflict – often with cross border effects. Conflict spills across borders and is the main driver of population displacement and a key contributor to food insecurity in the region. A substantial number of incidents occurred in border regions, particularly on the borders between Sudan/South Sudan, Kenya/Ethiopia, Kenya/Somalia and South Sudan/Ethiopia. Natural resource scarcity (land pastures and water) and abundance (hydrocarbons) both carry the potential to aggravate or trigger conflict.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, a region where many countries derive the majority of their export earnings from commodities, their falling cost has had a huge impact on government revenues and consequently, on government spending. Notably, the low price of oil and export commodities has resulted in rising inflation and currency devaluation in affected countries..The urban poor who are likely to experience a continuing decline in their purchasing power will experience increased vulnerability.
Key concerns:
Fragile peace in South Sudan
Risk of election related violence in DRC and Kenya
Deterioration in Burundi

3. Humanitarian needs increasing: Food insecurity trends
The number of people in Crisis and Emergency (IPC Phases 3 and 4) food insecurity in the East Africa region currently stands at 23.9 mn, representing a doubling since 2015.

4. Food response and drought emergencies
Food insecurity in Southern Africa
Food response and drought emergencies
12.3 million people targeted for food assistance
In Southern Africa, ·Overall humanitarian partners will target 12.3 mn people with food assistance in 7 priority countries. Five countries – Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe – have already declared national emergencies, in addition to eight out of nine provinces in Southern Africa that collectively account for 90 per cent of the country’s maize production. Mozambique has also issued a red alert for its most affected central and southern provinces, And yesterday SADC declared a regional drought emergency
· The worst is yet to come: In Southern Africa, food security is expected to deteriorate by July, reaching its peak between December 2016 and March The number of food insecure people is expected to be at least two times higher than current levels. WFP estimates that more than 49 million people are at risk due to El Niño-related drought and erratic rainfall during 2016/2017.

5. Impact- Displacement - IDP current scenario

6. Refugees current scenario

7. Communicable disease outbreaks
Eastern Africa region has been impacted by simultaneous disease outbreaks, including: measles (Kenya, South Sudan); acute watery diarrhea (Ethiopia, Somalia); cholera; (Kenya, Burundi, Uganda, DRC, Tanzania); Chikungunya (Somali cluster); suspected polio (Blue Nile, Sudan); Rift Valley Fever (Uganda); and Yellow Fever (Uganda). On top of this, spikes in Malaria prevalence are reported in South Sudan and Burundi
In Southern Africa, there has been an increase in Water-borne diseases (e.g. cholera in Zambia, Tanzania) and vector-borne disease outbreaks (e.g. malaria - Malawi, Namibia) as well as other infectious diseases - In Lesotho, we have seen 3 times increase of diarrhoeal disease cases and reported cases of dysentery . There has been a disruption to health services for example in Lesotho, severe water shortages resulted in closing of health facilities, and suspending provision of services.
Yellow Fever outbreak in Angola which also puts neighboring countries and the world at risk.
In Swaziland, this has affected safe delivery in maternity wards with an increase in mother-to-child HIV transmission Lack of access to food among HIV and TB patients resulted in treatment interruption in Malawi and Lesotho which might lead to drug resistance

8. CHALLENGES Restricted humanitarian access
Insecure operating environments – Somalia and South Sudan where armed group who are in control of different parts of the country have proliferated.
Humanitarian workers increasingly at risk-18 killed between October 2015 and March 2016
South Sudan alarming upsurge of violence against aid workers: 12 killed
Bureaucratic impediments –In South Sudan and Somalia, administrative impediments have been on the rise and continue to result in delays and interruptions in aid programming and aid delivery.
Securing visas and work permits – regional issue, especially in Sudan.

9. Eastern Africa is one of the worst funded globally and as it is competing with new crises such as Syria and Yemen.
•In 2015, less than half of the region’s combined $7 billion appeal was funded. Despite the increasing needs, funding requirements for the East Africa region have not risen significantly this year as humanitarian actors have been forced to refocus and prioritize efforts to support the most acute needs in hotspots response plans forced to prioritize.
•Funding for protracted situations, refugee operations in particular are significantly underfunded
•Southern Africa, is home to a number of middle income countries who are not eligible for grant assistance from international financial institutions. Consequently, as a region, it is struggling even more than Eastern Africa to attract humanitarian financing, despite its current funding requirement of $400 million – a figure set to increase as more countries finalize their HRPs – and it is heavily reliant on the CERF. If this highly vulnerable region continues to be negatively impacted by on-going climate events, the humanitarian situation could quickly deteriorate, and result in a humanitarian disaster on a massive scale.

10. Funding status: increasing reliance on CERF for refugee appeals and El Nino response

11. Key messages
Better joined up humanitarian-development planning will deliver better outcomes for people by moving beyond meeting their needs in the short term to reducing them over time.
WHS commitment – the 2030 Agenda creates a common framework for humanitarian and development actors for managing risk and reducing vulnerability— through collective analysis, working on multi year timeframes, engaging with diverse actors to leverage comparative advantages
In situations where life-saving humanitarian response will be necessary (particularly in contexts of armed conflict), need to redouble efforts on principled humanitarian action including by negotiating humanitarian access and advocating on protection of civilians

12. An example of joint action from the region: the RIASCO Action Plan
The RIASCO analysis harmonizes for the first time humanitarian response, resilience and the macro-economic and risk mitigation measures necessary for a successful outcome. The objective of the RIASCO Action Plan is to break down traditional siloes typical of emergency responses, and encourage governments, humanitarian relief agencies, and development partners to work together to meet the immediate humanitarian needs whilst also taking into account the need to build the resilience of the affected population to better handle future shocks. Furthermore, a range of macro-economic and risk management instruments are required to better enable the countries of the region to respond to such crises now and in the future.
Concrete outcomes so far
Pillar 1: Generated more humanitarian funding – the evidence based RIASCO Action Plan has attracted in excess of 50% funding pledges within 2 weeks of being launched
Pillar 2: Serious policy discussion on economic and productive diversification, early warning early action (for La Nina), expansion of social safety nets and delivery of basic services
Pillar 3: World Bank response $ 275 mn for the region