The government made the announcement after reassessing the “magnitude and severity” of the three-year drought.

It has badly affected three of the country’s nine provinces.

The decision came as Cape Town announced its water saving measures, which require each citizen to use less than 50 litres a day, had successfully pushed back “Day Zero” to 4 June.

Just a matter of weeks ago, the date that Cape Town’s taps were predicted to run dry was 12 April.

Mmusi Maimane, leader of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance (DA), which runs both the city of Cape Town and Western Cape province, tweeted:

In another tweet, he revealed the average water use in Cape Town, a city of about four million people, was below 550 million litres. Two years ago, it was at more than a billion litres per day.

It has been no easy task for Cape Town’s residents. The 50 litre limit is just enough for a very short shower and one flush of the toilet a day when other needs – including just one load of the washing machine a week – are taken into account.

However, the decision to declare a national disaster means the central government – which is run by the African National Congress (ANC) – will now take responsibility for relief efforts.

According to South African news website eNCA, the co-operative governance minister Des van Rooyen said last week more than 70m rand (£4.2m; $5.8m) had been put aside to tackle the crisis in the Western Cape, as well as in the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape, two provinces which have garnered less headlines, but are also struggling with the effects of the drought.

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Aid groups and the government are calling for help, but fear donor fatigue with other crises worldwide.

Famine has been declared in South Sudan, and there are warnings of famine in north-east Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia.

But Ethiopia is also struggling following successive failed rains.

The government, while better at coping with droughts than in previous years, still does not have the funds to cope by itself.

It allocated $381m (£300m) extra over the last two years, but is unable to sustain it for a third year.

It has left Ethiopia in a “dire situation”, according to John Aylieff of the World Food Programme, a UN agency.

“We’ve got food running out nationally at the end of June,” he told reporters on Friday.

“That means the 7.8 million people who are in need of humanitarian food assistance in Ethiopia will see that distribution cut abruptly at the end of June.”

His words were echoed by John Graham, of Save the Children

He told AFP news agency: “After [the food runs out], we don’t know what is going to happen. And without that basic food then you will have problem falling into severe malnutrition because people are not getting any food.

“These children become severely malnourished and that’s where you have a very dangerous situation.”

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Source: BBC

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