Southern Angola under severe drought

• Failure of rains in the Huila Province, Southern Angola has brought severe drought to the region. Cunene and Huila provinces are among Angola’s poorest regions and prone to adverse weather conditions.
•  The World Food Programme has projected this as the worst drought in 40 years due to lack of rain between November 2020 and January 2021.

Failure of rains in the Huila Province, Southern Angola has brought severe drought to the region. Cunene and Huila provinces are among Angola’s poorest regions and prone to adverse weather conditions. The World Food Programme has projected this as the worst drought in 40 years due to lack of rain between November 2020 and January 2021

Angolan government recently announced three water projects in the provinces of Cunene and Huila to reduce the impact of the drought in the affected regions. Manuel Quintino, the director-general of the National Institute of Water Resources of the  Ministry of Energy and Water the projects valued at $630 million rest on the diversion of the flow of major rivers. But environmentalists have cautioned about possible damage to fragile ecosystems that can further aggravate climate change. They have called for in-depth evaluations on the consequences of diversion of rivers before implementing the diversions.