Rich nations must honour $100 billion in climate finance

As a development worker, I have been to Phalombe, Malawi’s Southern Region District countless times. Whenever I am on a mission, I have always come out of the district satisfied knowing that Oxfam is doing something meaningful in supporting people in need until when Cyclone Freddy wreaked havoc in March this year.

On 24 March, two weeks after Cyclone Freddy swept through Mozambique and Malawi, I was in the district again, this time, on a humanitarian mission. As I drove to the Oxfam targeted communities through tattered roads ripped apart by floods, I saw villages that were reduced to rubble and people’s-crop-fields destroyed and filled with sand and stones. From what I saw, people will never grow anything on them again.

Many things I saw despite people rising to pick up pieces and kick start life again were a sorry sight.

After I arrived at the first distribution site, scores of people affected by the floods flocked and surrounded me and my colleagues needing the aid we brought. Sadly, the numbers we reached were fewer than the people in need.

I looked with sadness into the eyes of needy mothers, the elderly and children desperately needing to get assistance which we could not provide because we had reached our target in line with funds we had mobilised at that time. This made me feel emotional, empty, and lacking.

At this point, I knew the mission will not give me the satisfaction that I have always had in the past. I kept asking myself what else could be done to reach many people so that they can live a life of dignity again?  I was sad that due to resource constraints, it could take longer to reach out to everyone in need.  

The five-week-long Cyclone Freddy left behind a trail of destruction and death. In Mozambique and Malawi combined, the Cyclone killed over one thousand people, affected over three million people who lost their homes and livelihoods. In some places entire villages were swept away. It also partially or completely decimated over 800 thousand acres of crop land, roads, powerlines, telecommunications, and some public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals were levelled to the ground.

Maggie Mpanga, 80, told me a couple of weeks ago in May when I visited the District again that her two-acre piece of land she has been growing her food on since 1960s is now covered with stones and sand. She says she has “no idea” where she will plant maize in the next rainy season which is only five months away. Alindiine Nkolimbo, 82,  from the same district added that the cyclone also washed away her three goats and twelve chickens – her only source of livelihood.

“The livestock were helping me grow food because I could sell some animals when the rainy season approaches and use the money to pay labour to grow maize. I am too old to be working and now I have nothing to lean on as the growing season approaches”, she said

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has predicted that maize (staple food for the majority) production in Malawi will be about 20 to 30 percent below average and this will exacerbate food insecurity in the country. Despite being a harvesting season, a 50-kilogram bag of maize is still selling at approximately $22 as it were during a lean season. Experts predict that prices will get higher before the next harvest in March 2024.  

But can something be done to avert a situation?

By now, it would have been ideal if many of the affected people were supported with farming inputs for winter cropping or other social and economic empowerment activities to help them recover and build their resilience. Unfortunately, that is not the case with many. From what I have observed, government and many agencies including Oxfam do not have adequate resources to help the survivors with livelihoods recovery and resilience building initiatives because the international community has not made the funds available.

“I would have loved to do winter cropping by now, but I have nowhere to get seeds and fertiliser. Floods washed away all my livelihood and many people around me are also in need. I have no one I can go to for help”, Maggie said this when I asked her if she is doing winter cropping.

Maggie and Alindiine stories paint a picture of how Cyclone Freddy and many other climatic shocks continue to distort the lives of ordinary people particularly women and women-headed households in poor countries like Malawi and Mozambique.

Impact of Cyclone Freddy and its aftermath is another constant and glaring reminder of how the people least responsible for climate change are paying the steepest price. It is disheartening to note that nations that have contributed the most greenhouse gas emissions and committed to support the vulnerable nations through climate financing are miserably failing to walk the talk.

Rich-polluting countries are now three years overdue on their promise to mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance for low- and middle-income countries being battered by climate change.

Oxfam’s “Climate Finance Shadow Report 2023” published in June 2023 shows that while donors claim to have mobilized $83.3 billion in 2020, the real value of their spending was —at most— $24.5 billion. The $83.3 billion claim is an overestimate because it includes projects where the climate objective has been overstated or as loans cited at their face value.

This is immoral and unacceptable. We cannot talk about ending poverty and suffering if we don’t address climate change and injustice by reducing emissions and supporting poor countries that are facing the brunt of the consequences they did not cause.

The Malawi 2023 Tropical Cyclone Freddy Post-Disaster Needs Assessment revealed that Cyclone Freddy has cost the country $500 million while the total cost of recovery and reconstruction is approximately $700 million.

Rich countries cannot therefore continue being hypocritical, not walking the talk and looking away when poor people in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Somalia continue to suffer because of climate change, the grievous change they are not responsible for. As Malawi commemorates 100 Days Anniversary since the worst cyclone hit, rich nations must honor the $100 billion a year in climate finance in an accountable manner because poor nations continue losing and suffering the damages caused by climate change.  

Lingalireni Mihowa is the Country Representative for Oxfam Malawi office and Gender Justice Thematic Lead for Oxfam in Southern Africa