The European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, admits that climate change will “increasingly be a cause of humanitarian crisis” in Africa, particularly in territories with conflicts, such as the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.
“The biggest crises in Africa are well known: Sudan, the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of Congo in the east of the country, Mozambique in the north, especially in the Cabo Delgado region, Somalia or the Horn of Africa. Most of these crises are due to conflicts, but some of the conflicts are also fuelled by climate change,” said Janez Lenarčič, in an interview with the Lusa news agency and other European media in Brussels.
In anticipation of the European Humanitarian Forum, which is taking place in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday to collect donations for humanitarian aid, he said that “climate change is an aggravating factor and multiplier of crisis, which adds to the fragility of countries and communities and aggravates the humanitarian situation”.
“This is the case of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. In recent years, Mozambique has been affected by repeated tropical cyclones, something that did not happen so often in the past and which clearly points to a possible link with climate change, so we believe that climate change will increase and increasingly be a cause of humanitarian crisis,” said Janez Lenarčič, in response to a question from Lusa.
“We need peace in Cabo Delgado,” he added, pointing out that although the European Union (EU) is providing humanitarian aid for food, water and health care, only stability will make it possible to mitigate the effects of the climate.
With almost 300 million people worldwide estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, the EU has adopted an annual humanitarian budget of more than 1.8 billion euros for 2024, with more than half of these funds going to Africa.
“Africa remains the continent with most of the humanitarian crises we deal with,” Janez Lenarčič recognised.
Of the total ‘cake’, the European Commission allocates around 346 million euros to the populations of Eastern and Southern Africa affected by long-term conflicts in the Great Lakes region, as well as people displaced by extreme weather events and armed conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Madagascar, Mozambique and the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia).
In addition, the institution allocates nearly 200 million euros from the EU to address the consequences of forced displacement, food insecurity, acute and chronic malnutrition, natural hazards and recurrent epidemics in the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger), the Central African Republic and the Lake Chad basin (Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria), which are fuelled by conflicts, insecurity and climate change.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical storms during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
This situation is compounded by insecurity, as the province of Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed insurgency for seven years, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.
After a slight lull in 2023, these attacks have multiplied in recent weeks.
There have also been extreme weather events in recent months, which have led tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.
At the end of last year, the United Nations called on the international community to donate 413 million dollars (around 380 million euros) for Mozambique’s humanitarian needs in 2024, but so far the country has only received 6 per cent of these donor funds.
