Mozambique's Response to Floods A "Success Story"

Paulo Zucula, head of Mozambique's National Disaster Management Institute, was surprisingly satisfied when speaking about his department's response to the flooding that has submerged whole villages in the southern nation. An estimated 70,000 families have been left homeless and the government reports that 10 have been killed (BBC News reports 120,000 Mozambicans displaced and a approximately 30 fatalities) since the flooding began in December. Such numbers would not please some disaster management agencies, unless they were comparing them to numbers from a flood like the one Mozambique was ravaged by in 2001, when around 700 people were killed by rising waters in the Zambezi River Basin.

The UN has applauded Mozambique for is deliberately early predictions of the flooding and subsequent actions that were taken months before the waters rose. Villages began preparing to evacuate, food supplies were being moved into the Zambezi Basin, and warning systems were being set up throughout the region well in advance of what could have been just as deadly of a disaster as 2001. A UN spokesperson for its World Food Program said, "If you're looking for a success story of an African government that's trying to make things better for its people, this is a very good example of that."

The disaster agency was recently set up by the government. Several outside humanitarian groups, as well as the US State Department, have applauded Mozambique for its development since its 17-year civil war ended in 1992. They point to its continued progress in creating a democratic government and sustaining economic growth, alongside its ability to manage its own affairs and crises itself (as has been demonstrated by its response to the flooding) as signs of the country being a budding model nation in Africa. The key to revamping their disaster management and creating such an effective new agency was (USA, take notes...) in making it prevention-focused rather than response-oriented. The government was predicting the floods as early as October, and acted accordingly right away, knowing that the natural course of the floods could not be stopped, but the impact could be minimized with proper action.

While land has been damaged and displaced Mozambicans are still hungry, the government's actions over the last few months are models of what a cooperative, organized government can achieve in saving the lives of hundreds of its own people. Their operations will continue as the flood-waters subside, leaving in its wake an even more difficult task: to help those who were displaced find new homes in the aftermath of the disaster that destroyed 100,000 acres of farmland.