March 2017. In many countries it will be necessary to support affected communities to recover their eroded production capacity through provision of emergency seeds, inputs and other appropriate support for next season’s crops. Livestock need to be protected through provision of emergency feed, rehabilitation of watering points and emergency vaccinations against transboundary diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease. There is a need to scale up use of climate smart approaches including water harvesting among high-risk farming households. Poor feeding practices resulting from lack of food will also further compromise people’s immune system and increase the risk of infection due to drinking water scarcity as well as increases in vector borne disease. Ultimately, the drugs are less effective in virus suppression if not taken with food. Health institutions require support to ensure that they are able to function at optimum levels. For the many people living with HIV uninterrupted access to treatment is crucial to ensure drug adherence and avoid later multi-drug resistance. Water sources and reservoirs are severely depleted, forcing communities and their livestock to share the same unsafe sources and so increase the risk of disease. The importance of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in the response is critical to all sectors and will aim at ensuring affected populations’ access to potable water, sanitation and improved hygiene in its own right; as well as providing critical support to other sectors’ response activities i.e. ensuring adequate WASH services for nutrition; therapeutic feeding in health centres and communities, institutions, and school feeding programmes in the education sector. Drought, food and water shortages bring an increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) with women and children having to travel ever increasing distances in search of water; movement of displaced persons and often increased tensions within households. When affected by food insecurity, women and girls in particular may be forced into exploitative behaviours, including sexual abuse, to obtain resources for themselves and their families. Women play a key role in household livelihoods, and their knowledge and leadership needs to be incorporated into response planning and implementation. The specific needs of women and girls are often excluded from rapid assessments, and are often not addressed in responses while reliable sex-disaggregated data is lacking for sectoral interventions. The majority of Southern African countries are facing a negative economic outlook, mainly due to falling commodity prices and weakening currencies, and this is being compounded by the effects of the El Niño drought. This means that development funding will have to be redirected towards emergency relief efforts, which will further affect economic growth. Tourism, an important source of revenue, can also be expected to decrease due to water scarcity and impact on wildlife. Response The SADC Council of Ministers at its meeting of March 2016 recommended the declaration of a regional drought disaster and issuance of a regional appeal for assistance. Council also recommended the establishment of a SADC El Niño Logistics and Coordination Team at the SADC Secretariat to coordinate a regional response in close collaboration with Member States and supported by international cooperating partners (ICPs). In June 2016, SADC convened a meeting of Member States to review and validate the outcomes of national vulnerability assessments which provided most of the required data and information for this appeal. Ongoing responses in Member States include the scaling up of social safety net programmes, reallocation of national resources to attend to the needs of affected populations. Rapid and in-depth assessments have been conducted in many countries to inform their response plans. Sector platforms or cluster coordination mechanisms have been mobilized to coordinate the drought response in most countries and funding needs and gaps have been identified. 3