FAO steps up response to Zambia’s locust invasion
Insect Infestation
How the score is calculated
The score starts at 8. It adds points from recorded affected, deaths, displaced and casualty counts, plus terms found in the story title, event type or status. For each count, only its highest matching band is used.
- Affected people
- 1–999: +5 · 1,000–9,999: +12 · 10,000–99,999: +20 · 100,000–999,999: +28 · 1 million+: +35
- Deaths
- 1–9: +8 · 10–99: +14 · 100–999: +22 · 1,000+: +30
- Displaced people
- 1–9,999: +6 · 10,000–99,999: +12 · 100,000+: +18
- Casualties
- 100 or more: +8
- Story wording
- +10 for terms such as catastrophe, famine, war, conflict, major earthquake, mass casualty or critical. Otherwise, +5 for active, ongoing, emergency, outbreak, cyclone or hurricane.
Score bands: Watch 0–24 · Moderate 25–49 · High 50–74 · Critical 75–100. Scores are capped at 100. Missing or unparseable figures add no points.
This is a rule-based WorldsAid triage indicator, not an official or independently validated classification. It does not account for recency or local context, and it can understate events with incomplete reporting. Check the linked sources.
Historical record
Status: CLOSED · Imported 2026-10-07
Closed for this historical import at the site owner’s request; not a new assessment of current conditions.
In brief
- What happened25 September 2020, Lusaka – The next phase in the massive control operation against African Migratory Locust (AML) in Zambia is expected to begin today.
- How many affectedThe cited sources do not yet provide a reliable affected-person total.
- What help is neededThe Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is working closely with the Government of Zambia and other partners to protect crops, pastures and livelihoods from the pest, under the US$500 000 Southern Africa Emergency Locust Response and Preparedness Project.
What changed
First retained snapshot
No earlier verified snapshot is present in the recovered dataset. This record remains available as the historical baseline.
Situation
25 September 2020, Lusaka – The next phase in the massive control operation against African Migratory Locust (AML) in Zambia is expected to begin today. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is working closely with the Government of Zambia and other partners to protect crops, pastures and livelihoods from the pest, under the US$500 000 Southern Africa Emergency Locust Response and Preparedness Project. This contributes to the USD 3,877,000 Southern Africa Locust Emergency Response Plan developed under coordination of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in collaboration with the International Red Locust Control Organization for Central and Southern Africa (IRLCO-CSA). In Zambia, locusts have been reported in Central, Southern and Western regions, particularly in Shibuyunji, Mumbwa, Itezhi-tezhi, Kazungula, Namwala, Sesheke, Nalolo, Mongu, Mwandi and Kalabo districts. The invasion has become very serious in Sesheke and Mwandi in Western Province. A crisis task force meeting was convened by the Ministry of Agriculture and chaired by the Permanent Secretary with representatives from the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), IRLCO-CSA and FAO. The meeting outlined action points for massive control of the swarms with back-up support from FAO starting Thursday this week. Working with the Ministry of Agriculture, FAO will provide technical and financial assistance towards supporting ground surveys using GPS mapping systems, the formation of rapid response ground teams for monitoring and spraying, as well as facilitate production of awareness communication materials for communities. The AML is transboundary and currently affects at least three other countries that are neighbours to Zambia: Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. For this reason, FAO has launched a regional Emergency Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) to support affected countries to respond to the AML threat. The project focuses on surveillance emergency response in the locust hotspots and strengthening coordination and information exchange among the affected countries. It also strengthens the capacity of IRLCOCSA to support the government in aerial surveillance and mapping activities in hard-to-reach areas, and provides technical support for national locust surveillance and control units to be established. At the national level, fast action tracking meetings regarding the combat against the pest will continue be held on a weekly basis.
Linked charities and agencies
WorldsAid verification
A WorldsAid editor reviewed this record against 1 attributed source, cleaned feed formatting and checked the crisis, place and reporting date. No reliable human-impact total was promoted where the source did not provide one. Earlier observations remain in the evidence history instead of being silently overwritten.
What we knew when
- WorldsAid record entered the retained historical dataset.
- Last verification represented by this immutable snapshot.
Earlier figures are never replaced by later values; additional observations are retained as new ledger entries.
Provenance
This page renders the last verified WorldsAid cache directly in HTML. It does not treat generated summaries as primary evidence.
Cached dataset: worldsai_drup771.sql.gz
Verified
SHA-256 f099e8f1c5cf2e382dbd6ff17ab03debbc0626de94800ca7b7b90dfc65cb7720