Staff Writer
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Member States are meeting in Lilongwe to build consensus on accessing climate disaster money from the Loss and Damage Fund.
The SADC Regional Dialogue on Loss and Damage comes at a critical time for Southern Africa. The region continues to experience increasingly frequent and severe droughts, floods and tropical cyclones that are reversing development gains, placing growing pressure on public finances and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people.
The climate shocks are becoming increasingly systemic and transboundary, creating a regional polycrisis that combines climate risks with food insecurity, economic instability and displacement.
Agriculture, the backbone of Southern Africa’s economies and livelihoods has emerged as the sector most affected by climate impacts, accounting for 44 to 71 percent of total disaster damages across the region.
Recent disasters, including Cyclones Idai, Ana, Gombe and Freddy, have generated recovery needs amounting to billions of dollars, while back-to-back disasters continue to widen the financing gap for response and resilient recovery.
Over the past decade, SADC has made significant progress in strengthening regional disaster preparedness and response through the implementation of the SADC Disaster Risk Management Strategy and Action Plan.
Key milestones include the establishment and operationalization of the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre as the regional coordination mechanism for disaster preparedness and emergency response, and the SADC Emergency Response Team to provide rapid regional surge capacity during emergencies.
Together with strengthened regional early warning systems and disaster information management, these initiatives have significantly improved the region’s preparedness.
However, preparedness alone is no longer sufficient. While the region has strengthened its capacity to anticipate and respond to disasters, financing for recovery has not kept pace with the increasing scale and frequency of climate impacts.
Recovery continues to rely heavily on humanitarian appeals and emergency budget reallocations, creating growing recovery deficits that undermine long-term resilience.
The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is expected to launch its first call for funding proposals in October 2026, while seasonal forecasts indicate the likelihood of a Super El Niño during the 2026/27 season, which could significantly increase drought conditions, food insecurity and economic losses across Southern Africa.
The Dialogue seeks to strengthen Member States’ readiness to access emerging climate finance while preparing for future climate shocks.
The Dialogue is expected to culminate in the adoption of a SADC Regional Position on Loss and Damage, which strengthens evidence, knowledge and decision-support systems to improve the assessment and measurement of economic and non-economic losses.
SADC countries also seek to strengthen governance, institutional capacity and policy coherence to enhance regional and national readiness for loss and damage, catalyse strategic investment and sustainable financing by improving access to predictable, accessible and innovative climate finance.
Member States also seek to strengthen implementation readiness, coordination and partnerships to translate policies, investments and commitments into timely, coordinated and resilient action.
The five day dialogue brings together policymakers, disaster management experts and technical officials from across the 16 SADC nations.
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