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There’s a critical drought at the moment affecting a lot of international locations in southern Africa. Some reviews say that is the worst drought in over 100 years. The issue is that these droughts have gotten too frequent and rising in severity, it seems. I learn an article this week from an area information group which reported that the U.N. World Meals Programme has confronted challenges in elevating $400 million for its southern Africa drought response. The company has collected simply one-fifth of what it wants to assist seven international locations within the area. That article additionally contained a really alarming statistic that ought to actually be giving regional leaders sleepless nights.
The article mentioned, “Southern Africa is experiencing its worst drought in decades, forcing Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe to declare states of disaster. The drought resulted from the El Niño climate phenomenon, which can change world weather patterns, bring extreme seasonal temperatures, rainfall, or dry spells, and hurt crop yields.”
The explanation for this large shortfall and why it can maintain getting worse is that near 70% of the southern African inhabitants depends on rain-fed agriculture and had their harvests decimated by the dearth of adequate rainfall. 70% is extremely excessive, particularly on this altering local weather atmosphere the place irregular rainfall patterns seem like they may grow to be the brand new regular. In Malawi, for instance, solely about 4% of cultivated land is underneath irrigation. This isn’t sustainable.
This could actually be ringing alarm bells and packages ought to be formulated to deal with this meals insecurity and implementation, and expedited. A deep look into sustainable irrigation packages tied to the native hydrology ought to actually be a precedence. A significant barrier to that is in fact the dearth of entry to electrical energy in most rural areas of the affected international locations, which might be required to energy all these irrigation schemes. Nonetheless, technological advances over the past decade have led to the worth of photo voltaic panels and related steadiness of system to drop tremendously.
What all this implies is that there has by no means been a greater time to get good worth from distributed photo voltaic PV techniques. A whole lot of progress has been made in photo voltaic and stationary storage, with rising market shares in a variety of international locations within the developed world. Customers now have entry to photo voltaic panels, batteries, and EVs at costs decrease than ever. Photo voltaic panel costs are so low now that we now hear reviews that it’s cheaper to purchase photo voltaic panels and use them to assemble fences in some locations in Europe than to make use of conventional fencing materials! A fence that additionally generates clear electrical energy — how cool is that? You realize what can be even cooler? A whole lot of distributed photo voltaic powering very important irrigation initiatives to assist enhance meals safety!
There must be extra urgency from regional leaders round this matter. With the proper prioritization of sources, these international locations might begin to make good inroads into fixing this situation even from native sources with out essentially having to look to exterior help from donor organizations. They might additionally accomplice with native personal sector gamers and create an enabling atmosphere that may help personal sector gamers in fixing this situation.
Excessive climate patterns leading to heavy flooding or critical droughts and warmth waves are being skilled extra often in additional locations all over the world, not simply in southern Africa, and it seems like these extremes might grow to be an actual long-term menace to livelihoods. There actually must be pressing motion from regional leaders in southern Africa on this dire state of affairs the place relying totally on rain-fed agriculture places the area in such a precarious meals safety state of affairs.
