10/29/2025
Field Visit: Heading Off Humanitarian Crises in Africa
From refugee camps in Tanzania to drought-prone villages in Zimbabwe, a recent field visit by the Trafigura Foundation revealed how the Start Network’s rapid and anticipatory responses are helping communities withstand crises before they escalate.
Communication Manager Celine Guerin recently visited Tanzania and Zimbabwe to see how timely action by the Start Network, one of the Trafigura Foundation’s newest partners, is helping to prevent or ease crises induced by climate change and other factors.
What was the purpose of your trip?
We wanted to see first-hand the impact that the Start Network’s rapid response mechanism, the Start Fund, is having in one of the areas where the Foundation focuses its support, namely anticipatory action and emergency response.
The Foundation had been looking to deploy its disaster response funding more efficiently, via an organisation with a global presence and an on-the-ground network that can react quickly and effectively to help people caught up in extreme weather events or other emergency situations.
Start Fund fits that description perfectly, and we signed an agreement earlier this year with the Start Network to provide financial support to the fund through 2027.
The trip was also an opportunity to learn more about Start Network’s broader activities, including its anticipation programme.
The first part of your trip was to Tanzania. Where exactly did you go?
Staff from Start Network and two local implementing partners[1] accompanied me and other donors to the Nyarugusu refugee camp, in the Kigoma Region of western Tanzania, about 50 kilometres from the border with Burundi.
The camp, which was built nearly 30 years ago, holds more than 130,000 people. Most of them are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. Some residents have been there for a long time and many of the young people were born in the camp.
Earlier this year, the resurgence of the M23 armed group in DRC triggered a new influx of refugees into Tanzania that threatened to overwhelm the camp, which already operates far above capacity.
Start Fund support enabled local implementing partners to map and project needs, and pre-position supplies of things like shelters, bedding and cooking supplies. They also built up their provision of health services, water, and sanitation, including hundreds of additional latrines.
The local partners offered more psychosocial support including trauma counselling and training to prevent gender-based violence. They also stepped up their work to promote dialogue and peaceful co-existence between the refugees and host communities in four nearby villages.
All this was done within 60 days of Start Fund receiving an alert, meaning that some of the most immediate needs of the new arrivals could be met without adding to the pressures on those already living in and around the camp.
[1] ActionAid Tanzania and Disability Relief Services Tanzania
Makeshift shelter housing refugees at Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania. The camp holds over 130,000 people, mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi.
So a crisis has been successfully averted?
I was very impressed with the work being done by Start Network and its members, by their professionalism and dedication, and by how much they are delivering with limited resources.
I was also struck by the resilience and resourcefulness of these communities. The people in the camp face a hard life, and recent cuts in support from international donors make it even tougher. We heard that some aid organisations have pulled out after losing funding, while those that remain are struggling to maintain the basic services that people here depend on.
That is an additional cloud hanging over people already facing an uncertain future, particularly for youngsters who have the same hopes and dreams as young people everywhere. So while the immediate crisis has been blunted, the outlook for the people living in the camp seems bleak.
Who could you speak with at the camp?
Our delegation was divided into two groups. One group met with some of the refugees from DRC. I was in the second group, which met with about 40 members of host communities in two nearby villages.
They explained to us how Start Network’s partners work to build awareness and understanding between refugees and host communities.
Refugees need special permissions to leave the camp, but some of them do sometimes – for instance to look for firewood or water or go to medical appointments where the care is not available in the camp – and some of the young people find it hard to be stuck there all the time. So they interact with local communities, who say some issues arise, mostly minor, but also including serious matters.
To prevent tensions from escalating, Start Network’s partners work with village committees that have put up suggestion boxes so people can easily report issues. Community meetings then evaluate the suggestions and decide what to do.
They also support a community-run radio station whose broadcasts include explanations of where the refugees have come from and the problems that drove them from their homes.
These services are important to promote acceptance and peaceful coexistence, especially when there is a new influx of people into the camp.
DRC refugees sharing their experiences with Start Network partners and donors.
Below: suggestion boxes in villages near the camp let host communities raise concerns and guide local responses.
What was the focus in Zimbabwe?
On the Zimbabwe leg of the trip, we learnt about two different but closely related Start Network programmes: Start Ready, which funds action to prepare for expected climate shocks, so technically anticipation risks and acting ahead of their impact; and Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) Replica, an innovative risk insurance programme.
The Start Ready mechanism was triggered in Zimbabwe in late 2024 by forecasts that parts of the country was set to suffer drought. The focus was on reducing the potential impact on communities that had already been severely affected by low rains and sustained high temperatures the previous year.
We visited a community south of Gwanda, in Matabeleland South Province, where organisations[2] in the Start Network implemented a series of measures to prevent shortages of water and crop yield and loss of animals.
Most impressively, in just two months, they installed three 10,000-litre tanks equipped with solar-powered pumps to draw water from boreholes and deliver it through 22 km of pipes to residential areas. This system is supplying enough water for 400 households as well as for livestock which are at the core of their livelihoods.
Local farmers also received emergency livestock feed, and drought-tolerant and shorter-maturing seed varieties to cushion the potential impact of the drought.
[2] Christian Aid Zimbabwe and Lutheran Development Services (local NGO partner)
In Gwanda, southwest Zimbabwe near the South African border, Start Network partners installed solar-powered boreholes and 10,000-litre tanks, piping water to homes, livestock, and fields so communities are prepared for the next drought.
What about the insurance scheme?
Start Network has also delivered proactive assistance to at-risk communities in Zimbabwe and other African countries under the African Risk Capacity insurance scheme, where payouts are triggered by events such as poor rains and the risk of crop failure.
During the last drought, member organisations[3] and their local partners distributed vouchers to more than 180,000 people in hard-hit areas so they could buy essentials like cooking oil, sugar beans and maize meal, and avoid resorting to things like selling assets such as livestock or pulling their children out of school.
We met with about 40 community members in each of two villages in Mberengwa district, which is in Midlands Province. They told us that the assistance, including emergency food supplies, meant they always had what they needed to survive the drought. They also praised weather alerts that they received via SMS from both the government and Start Network partners that helped them to decide when to sow and harvest crops to minimise their losses.
Community members in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe, share how Start Network’s proactive assistance and emergency food support help them cope with droughts.
What were your key takeaways from the trip?
The facts on the ground speak their own language, and what I saw in Tanzania and Zimbabwe and heard from local people and fellow donors confirm our belief that the Start Network is an effective and efficient actor in the humanitarian space.
Even our trip, including the logistics of whisking dozens of donor representatives to remote locations in two countries, was organised by just four people – another reassuring indication of this partner’s careful use of resources.
I was also very encouraged by how their models empower local communities to take charge, build their resilience, and to look to the future with confidence.
Communities and local partners stressed how getting support before a crisis has fully hit has been transformational: saving homes and livelihoods, reducing trauma and reducing the need for much more costly interventions after a disaster has already unfolded.
With humanitarian and climate action in flux, the Start Network’s programmes embody exactly the kind of creative and proactive approach that is needed, and which our Foundation is pleased to support.
The field visit made clear that timely anticipatory action – from pre-positioned supplies to solar-powered boreholes and insurance payouts – turns early warnings into life-saving support, backing local rapid response and enabling communities to thrive in a changing climate.
