Drought in Namibia - snapshot of the future?

Dominic Farrell in AllAfrica.com via ThinkAfrica Press: Namibia is facing what could be its most severe drought in thirty years. The immediate crisis is serious, but it underlines the importance of Namibia's efforts to become climate-resilient. Namibia, the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, is currently facing its worst drought in 30 years.

In the Kunene region in the north, rain has not fallen for two years, and the UN recently estimated that 778,000 people - approximately one third of the population - are either moderately or severely food insecure. And this has had knock-on effects in the south of Angola, where an estimated 1.5 million people are also believed to be food insecure.

In Namibia, hospitals are admitting increasing numbers of people suffering from malnutrition - with one district hospital in the Ohangwena region reporting a 76% increase in paediatric malnutrition since March - and many groups are finding it difficult to maintain their ways of life.

To tackle these problems, the Namibian government has pledged $20 million in relief for the worst-affected households, and UNICEF is trying to raise $7.4 million to reach the 109,000 children under-five who are at risk of severe malnutrition....

A springbok antelope in the Namib Desert, shot by Luca Galuzzi Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license