Skip to main content

Chad: Humanitarian partners appeal for $500 million for immediate life-saving activities and long-term preparedness and recovery approaches

Countries
Chad
+ 1 more
Sources
OCHA
Publication date
Origin
View original

Despite recent political upheavals in Libya and neighbouring countries across the Sahel, Chad is on a steady path to sustainable recovery and stabilization.

Favourable rain patterns in the Sahel in 2012 are expected to yield better agricultural production in 2013. However, given the severe food-insecurity trends of 2012, the 1.8 million people who were food-insecure will now need assistance to recover sustainably and protect their livelihoods.
The situation will require close monitoring, and a targeted response is needed for the food-security and nutritional needs of vulnerable communities.

Chad avoided a cholera epidemic in 2012 (whereas in 2011, about 17,000 cases were reported, including 455 deaths). However, given the recurring nature of such epidemics, prevention and preparedness are priorities. In 2012, there was a resurgence of other diseases, including poliomyelitis and measles, and a spike in malaria and other water-related diseases linked with a severe rainy season.

Floods affected more than 560,000 people in 2012, of whom thousands were displaced. This will likely have a lasting impact on short- and medium-term livelihoods in affected areas in 2013. A combination of actions is needed to increase communities‘ capacity to manage the negative impact of future floods and avoid damage to residential areas and crops near riverbeds. This will involve collaboration among national authorities, the humanitarian community and the private sector.

Following the Libya crisis, more than 90,000 Chadian migrant workers returned to areas of origin or settled in transit zones, mostly in Faya Largeau and around Bourkou, Ennedi, Tibesti and the Sahel belt. These areas are already at high risk of food insecurity. There are still 288,457 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad and 58,197 Central African refugees in the south, plus 537 urban refugees in N‘Djamena. An estimated 91,000 former IDPs have returned to their areas of origin, but 90,000 are still displaced. The lack of basic social services and the absence of rule of law in return areas need to be addressed using a multi-sectoral approach that includes capacity-building of local authorities and establishing conflict-resolution mechanisms to avoid intracommunity disputes. The Early Recovery Cluster is a key forum for supporting such holistic strategies.

Many of Chad’s recurrent humanitarian crises have structural causes, such as chronic poverty and institutional weaknesses. To ensure that aid budgets are more cost-effective and save more lives over the long term, they need to shift towards a more integrated model that combines preparedness activities, disaster risk reduction, resilience-building and timely, targeted humanitarian response.

The cycle of recurrent crises is exacerbated by the arrival of returnees from neighbouring countries fleeing violence. As a result, the livelihoods of communities in disaster-affected areas are further strained. This situation is worsened by the deterioration of their purchasing power and the degradation of the environment caused by climate change, deforestation, erosion, desertification, over-exploitation of groundwater and pressure on scarce natural resources.

In 2013, the humanitarian community’s strategic objectives will continue to address the immediate life-saving needs of refugees, IDPs, returnees, expelled migrants, host communities, and people affected by sudden- and slow-onset natural disasters. Special focus will be given to strengthening the resilience of disaster-affected communities to handle cyclical shocks. In this context, the interaction between emergency assistance, recovery and development is a continuum in which medium- and long-term development initiatives co-exist with principled short-term emergency response, where life-saving interventions are needed as well as preparedness activities.

The Consolidated Appeal is supported by a three-year humanitarian strategy (2013-2015) that aims to improve the resilience of people exposed to recurrent disasters, and to help the Government respond to emergencies, in synergy with national development strategic plans and the upcoming UNDAF. In 2013, the humanitarian community will step up efforts on contingency planning and stocking, early warning systems, conflict prevention and risk analysis to enable the authorities and humanitarian actors to respond faster and more effectively, and ensuring conflict sensitivity during crises.

As of November, the 2012 Chad Consolidated Appeal has received 67% of required funding. Some sectors remain largely underfunded, including Protection (5%), Education (15%), Health (24%) and WASH (36%). Balanced funding among sectors is vital to ensure complementarity and a comprehensive response.

To achieve the strategic objectives outlined above, nine United Nations agencies, IOM and 23 NGOs, in consultation with the Government and local actors, are appealing for US$500,512,658 to cover the projects in 2013.

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit https://www.unocha.org/.