Public Health Jobs ,2024-06-29 23:30:25
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By Sarah Miller , Mark Wood | June 28, 2024
Executive Summary
A spike in insurgent attacks in northern Mozambique is driving a growing humanitarian and displacement crisis, even as donors and security forces are withdrawing. The result is a boiling crisis that threatens to create a hotbed for expanding extremism and spread displacement and humanitarian suffering across the region. More than 70,000 people have been displaced since the latest outbreak of violence in February 2024, bringing the total number of people displaced by the insurgency to some 1 million. The attacks, led by ISIS-affiliated armed groups, are brutal, including beheadings, abductions, sexual violence, burnings, and beatings. A combination of security forces, including Mozambican troops, Rwandan troops, and South African Development Community (SADC) troops, have offered some protection of civilians, but are struggling to contain the latest spate of attacks.
But the situation may be on the brink of becoming much worse. SADC troops are set to leave by the end of July 2024, with South Africa and Tanzania extending their mission until the end of 2024 and Rwanda sending an extra 2,000 troops in a bilateral agreement with the government of Mozambique. Internally displaced people (IDPs) fleeing the new attacks – some of whom have been displaced multiple times – are struggling to survive and have limited access to humanitarian aid. As these forces leave, civilians in Mozambique’s north will likely find themselves in an even more precarious situation. To prevent these outcomes, the government of Mozambique must work with partners to fill the impending security void. Mozambique’s leaders must also overcome misguided failures to publicly recognize the situation as a humanitarian crisis and give the emergency the sense of urgency it needs to catalyze the United States and other international donors to respond to the growing humanitarian gap.
The recent attacks have increased humanitarian needs. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently petitioned donors for another $413 million in emergency assistance for some 2.3 million people in Cabo Delgado and neighboring Nampula province. In March 2024, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) indicated that nearly 90 percent of those who are displaced are women—many pregnant—people with disabilities, or the elderly. More than half of the newly displaced are children. Many IDPs in the region face daily uncertainty over security conditions, local discrimination, and lack the most basic of items, including soap, food, clean water, sanitation, and health services. Few have been able to find work to support themselves, and many children have no access to education. Many have also been separated from family members when they fled with just the clothes on their backs.
The government of Mozambique has been reluctant to recognize and address the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the north. Since the end of the country’s civil war in 1992, international actors have typically considered Mozambique a country ripe for development. Unlike Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or other states that regularly have displacement crises, Mozambique has been a hub for development investment and wider anti-poverty work. In fact, the government of Mozambique is still resistant to portray the north as being in crisis, in part because it does not want to appear to lack control, and also because of a long history of neglecting the region. As one humanitarian worker told Refugees International during a recent trip, “The government does not want this to be seen as a humanitarian problem.” This posture is limiting the ability to adequately scale the humanitarian response.
In addition to the security threats, northern Mozambique also faces mounting effects of climate change, which compound the needs of displaced people. Many vulnerable populations and IDPs live along the coast in low-lying areas, where they are at risk of cyclones and floods from other storms. They are more likely to be in tents and makeshift shelters, or buildings that owners could not afford to rebuild after storms.
Moreover, chronic underfunding means that relatively little aid is reaching people. UNHCR’s $49 million requirement was only 17 percent funded as of March 2024, and the wider Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan was only 14 percent funded as of March 2024. Without immediate steps to ensure the safety and security of IDPs and an increase in humanitarian funding, northern Mozambique’s population – and IDPs in particular – could face a wider humanitarian and security crisis. The international community must also reckon with a painful reality: Mozambique is a reminder that the world’s failures to sustain investments in peace produce humanitarian fallout and widespread displacement.
Recommendations
To the government of Mozambique:
Declare a humanitarian emergency in Cabo Delgado, led by the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGD), and develop a response plan across national and subnational levels of the government. This includes appealing for emergency funding, promoting access to external monitoring and humanitarian intervention, and scaling up resources and attention to the region to prevent further crisis among an already traumatized population. Mozambique should draw across sectors in government – from health, to education and labor – to respond to the needs of IDPs.
Create a branch of the INGD to focus on conflict-related displacement. While the INGD has shown leadership and taken strides in its response to climate-related displacement, the office needs more training on how to respond to IDPs fleeing a security crisis.
Accelerate the implementation of the Kampala Convention – a regional tool that lays out the rights of IDPs and a state’s obligations before, during, and after displacement. This should be done in partnership with UN and international experts on human rights of IDPs. In particular, the INGD should facilitate the implementation of the Kampala Convention at the sub-national level by ensuring that IDPs are aware of their rights through training and dissemination.
Establish local IDP councils – akin to those in Ukraine – to help with planning, coordination, and logistics in humanitarian and IDP-specific responses. These should comprise diverse IDP leaders and organizations who can interface regularly with government officials at local and regional levels, and can build on community consultations that are already carried out by the protection cluster.
To donors, development actors, and international aid actors, including the UN and international NGOs:
International donors and security partners should ensure that Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania are resourced to maintain temporary troop presences to prevent further destabilization of northern Mozambique following the withdrawal of SADC forces. Over the longer term, these actors should work with the government of Mozambique to devise a comprehensive and long-term stabilization strategy for Cabo Delgado. One option to explore would be the deployment of an African Union peace and security mission with UN support under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 2719, which would provide funding for African Union-led missions.
Prioritize work with local partners to identify humanitarian shortfalls and gaps that need to be addressed. Funding and building partnerships with local groups will help to improve access, quality, and reach of humanitarian aid. Local groups could lead on a range of tasks, including, for example – but not limited to – registration, food distribution, health screenings, shelter, and mental health.
Increase coordination and information-sharing about programs and activities that relate to displaced people with development and financing actors, such as the World Bank. As many aid workers said they had little familiarity with World Bank projects, this will help actors better sync their programs and efforts.
Construct information-sharing platforms where displaced people can access up-to-date security information to make more informed decisions about return, further movements, livelihood activities, efforts to find family members, and wider safety conditions.
Provide training for the INGD and local authorities on IDP protection specific to the violence, given that Mozambique has less experience in conflict-related humanitarian emergency response.
Invest in gender-specific programming, including access to hygiene kits, mental health services, women safe spaces, child safe spaces and other services. Programs should be available for all women and girls, including survivors of conflict related sexual violence (CRSV). For young women in particular, facilitate education catch up and for teen parents, assist in childcare options.
Invest in one-stop-shop models, which have demonstrated success in helping IDPs with acquiring essential documentation, such as birth certificates. The World Bank’s model in Mozambique, for example, allows people to obtain a birth certificate and national identity card at the same location at the same time.
Invest in livelihood programming and vocational training among displaced groups and affected communities, and scale up accordingly at the outset of displacement.
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