Executive Summary
The region experienced in many parts of the countries, the below normal rainfall conditions depicted by the devastating drought episode associated with the 2015/2016 El Nino event which threatens to impact negatively on livelihoods and quality of lives in the Region.
The SADC Climate Services Centre (CSC) had predicted, in August 2015, during SARCOF-19 the below normal rainfall conditions. This was consistent with the observed poor rainfall performance.
The current rainfall 2016/17 outlook is the opposite (reverse) of the last season.
According to the last season (2015/2016) record , the Southern African Development Community (SADC) received below-normal to normal rainfall for the period October to December (OND) 2015 and the January to March (JFM) 2016. Whereas according to this current season (2016/2017) forecast, most parts of the SADC region are expected to receive normal to abovenormal rainfall for the bulk of central and southern part of the region and normal to below over the northern parts of the region.
The user community that participated at SARCOF-20 discussed and formulated the mitigation measures for water resources and Energy, agriculture and food security, livestock, disaster risk management, and communications, among many other sectors.
For agriculture sectors, 2016/17 rainfall outlook represents a good opportunity to maximize agricultural production, particularly for areas that normally receive good rainfall, and where the forecast is for normal with a bias towards above normal rainfall. From a crop production perspective, farmers can comprehensively utilize the forecast by committing a larger portion of their cropland to medium to late maturing, high performance varieties, but some percentage of the cropland should also be put to early maturing, and drought-tolerant crops and varieties as a contingency measure to guard against the outside possibility of below average. Crop diversification, especially planting of some drought-tolerant crops in relevant areas, as well as nutrition-rich crops, is encouraged.
Water and Energy sectors are foreseen to expect to normal river flows, prioritizing to filling up the low reservoirs, planning to undertake a simulation for water allocations guideline, to develop the management scenario, to continue with importation of power and to expedite the completion of internal power projects.
For Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) sector, the forecast suggests a likelihood of normal to above normal rains, which has the potential to lead to incidences of flooding. In the worsecase scenario, flooding may lead to loss of lives, displacement of populations, destruction of properties and infrastructure; and interrupt access to basic social services such as schools, health facilities and markets. Affected areas may also face outbreaks of water and vector borne diseases.
In order for end-users to be able to take full advantage of the forecast normal rains to above conditions, all suppliers and agencies involved in the production and distribution of inputs such as seeds and fertilizer need to ensure that these become available to farmers on time, well before the onset of rains.
The key recommendation is that planning for extreme events is an essential way forward for all SADC Member States to mitigate and adapt to the threatening of the adverse effects of climate variability.