17 Jul 2024

The Botswana Red Cross Society (BRCS) will through the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) disburse P7.2 million to help 72 000 members of the community to mitigate the drought situation in the country.

The move is a response to the drought season declared recently by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi and will go to the affected members of the community.

The BRCS secretary general and chief executive officer, Mr Kutlwano Mukokomani said in an interview recently that the relief fund would augment what government would be offering the community through its drought relief programme.

He said through the DREF, the BRCS had mobilised resources to address the drought by coming up with packages tailored made to resuscitate rural communities which were solely dependent on agricultural produce to survive.

He said a comprehensive six-month drought response plan would be implemented in the hardest hit areas.

Mr Mukokomani said through the drought response plant, they would support the rural farmers in Hukuntsi, Mabutsane and North East Districts focusing on improving livelihoods, enhancing nutritional health for children under five years, ensuring food security and addressing water, sanitation and hygiene.

He said identified community members would be offered poultry projects (layers and broilers) as they were easily manageable and be economically sustainable.

He said identified beneficiaries were affected by drought as their primary sources of income in the agricultural sector were struck by drought.

“Now, they cannot plough due to the hit wave, cold fronts and little rainfall as well as having lost their livestock. We had seen it fit to assist them with projects that can be managed within the household and sustain their communities,” he said.  

Some households, he said would be assisted with food hampers for six months.

In some instances, he said beneficiaries would get a six-month stipend to have a choice of buying what was situated to sustain them.  

Mr Mukokomani also said the Red Cross had operational community-based projects (farming projects) in Gweta and other localities across the country where they practiced irrigation farming to produce vegetables.

“We are going to increase production at such projects so that they could supply more people,” he said.

For the smooth running of the relief programme, he said the BRCS would engage relevant government departments especially that of social services at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, community leaders such as dikgosi to fully identify those who were eligible to benefit from the relief fund.

Mr Mukokomani said it was envisaged that relief interventions would commence from either July end or beginning of August after completion of thorough assessment, which would include site visits and engaging relevant government authorities.

Since the beginning of the year, he said there were excessive heat waves, which worsened the drought situation.

“What makes the situation worse was that the country was a semi-arid desert with limited land suitable for agriculture therefore making the country prone to prolonged dry seasons,” he said.

He said the winter season had been devastating to the farming community and cold fronts had resulted in frosts destroying the winter crops and killing livestock and poultry.

Mr Mukokomani said also the drought situation was exacerbated by the fact that the rain season had received little rainfall resulting in less water for both dry and irrigation farming as well as livestock, which was not enough to sustain production in the agriculture sector.

Therefore, Mr Mukokomani said the harvest was less than what was received in the past years, therefore challenging the essence of food security.

He said the situation had forced animals to travel long distances in search of water and pastures, which took a toll on them as they lost energy in the process.

He added that a larger portion of the rural communities was sustained by agriculture produce adding that even those who did not cultivate their fields or rear livestock were equally dependent on the farming community for their livelihoods.

Mr Mukokomani said the situation worsened the challenging human-wildlife conflict as human beings and wild animals compete for the little water as well and forced wild animals to move out of the conservation areas into communal areas destroying crops and preying on livestock.

“We saw it fit as an axillary arm to government to respond to the devastating drought situation,” he said.

In areas where there was human-wildlife conflict, he said the Red Cross would engage in measures that would mitigate the challenge as human beings and wild animals competed for the limited water sources.

He further said the society had identified some localities with acute water shortage where they were planning to erect water to assist the affected communities with potable water through bowsing.

He said through the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programme, BRCS would also engage the community in practices that would encourage sanitation and hygiene.

Mr Mukokomani also added that BRCS would not be confined to emergency relief as they had also applied for an Appeal Fund, which would holistically cater for the drought situation.

“We want more money to respond and an Appeal Fund can run for a long term compared to DREF, which respond to immediate and short term effects of disaster,” he said. ENDS