Angola

Allocation	$2,997,820
Emergency type	Drought
Window	Rapid Response
Recipient UN Agencies	UNICEF, WFP
Group of people targeted	Other affected persons
Number of people targeted	133,000
Status	Report Available
Allocation code	24-RR-AGO-64769
Title	Angola RR Application May 2024 (El Nino-drought)

Overview of the humanitarian situation

During the 2023/24 El Niño event, Angola was grappling with severe dry conditions, including its driest February in over four decades. This was exacerbating an already critical food security crisis particularly in the country’s southern and eastern regions. OCHA estimated around 5.6 million people to be affected. Alarmingly, the southern regions were also suffering from distressing malnutrition levels, with reports of starvation-related fatalities. A $3 million ‘no regrets’ CERF allocation provided immediate life-saving food security and nutritional support.

CERF-funded assistance

This $3 million allocation ensured continuity of essential food security, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to vulnerable people in Huíla and Cunene provinces affected by El Niño. It focused on scaling up lifesaving interventions, enhancing the protection of affected people, and implementing an efficient humanitarian response through an interagency, multisectoral approach. The initiative targeted food, water, and nutrition insecurity, particularly for children, women, and extremely vulnerable households, by providing treatment for malnutrition, counseling for caregivers, and improving access to water and food assistance. The allocation provided humanitarian assistance to 181,506 people, including 24,414 men, 35,866 women, and 121,226 children, including 3,975 persons with disabilities.

CERFs Strategic Added Value

This CERF funding led to a fast delivery of assistance to people in need at a time when humanitarian partners were still mobilizing resources to respond. Rapid assistance included screening and treatment of children under five years old with moderate and severe acute malnutrition, distribution of commodity vouchers to households of acutely malnourished children and rehabilitation of water points and WASH sensitization in four of the most drought-affected municipalities in southern Angola. Additionally, this funding helped respond to time-critical needs. This includes increased nutrition-related screening and treatment as well as prevention, and the provision of commodity vouchers to households with poor indicator values. Moreover, this CERF funding improved coordination amongst the humanitarian community as it demanded regular meetings and information sharing on several programmatic aspects, including strategy, priority activities and geographical coverage options. Other inter-agency coordination improvements included joint training on PSEA, cost efficiency resulting from UNICEF and WFP contracting the same implementing partner (World Vision International), improved engagement with the relevant provincial government on planning and implementation, and the integration of operational activities (for instance, borehole rehabilitation benefiting close by schools and health posts beside the local population). Finally, this funding helped improve resource mobilization from other sources. For instance, in the case of WFP, it helped mobilize internal funding by showcasing to the regional office and headquarters the results that were being achieved with CERF funding, thus making an argument for additional resources to complement and extend emergency activities. For UNICEF, CERF funding strengthened advocacy with USAID/BHA by allowing further data collection that was then used in their proposals.

Projects included in this allocation

Organization	Project title	Code	Amount in US$
UNICEF	Integrated emergency life-saving interventions to El Niño emergency in Southern Angola	24-RR-CEF-031	US$1,347,820	Read more
WFP	Angola El Niño Response – Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition and Assistance to Vulnerable and Food Insecure Families in Huíla and Cunene provinces	24-RR-WFP-026	US$1,650,000	Read more