New appeal for continuing drought crisis

A revised appeal based on rapid needs assessments in countries affected by drought in the Horn of Africa will be launched at the end of May, which will give donors a clear picture of relief needs in the food, health, water and livestock sectors, Catherine Bertini, WFP executive director and special envoy of the UN Secretary-General on the drought in the Greater Horn of Africa, said at a New York briefing on Tuesday. She warned that food needs may go up. Since her mission to the region last month, Bertini said donors had made significant contributions to help address the crisis, including US$ 67 million to WFP’s drought-related operations.

Bertini said extraordinary pressure had been placed on the ports of Djibouti and Berbera and the roads connecting the two ports to the interior. Of the estimated US$ 8 million required to facilitate the efficient delivery of relief items, such as through port improvements, only US$ 1 million had been confirmed by donors to date. Bertini said the appointment on 1 May of a UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the drought, based in Addis Ababa, was crucial for logistics coordination and cross-border shipments of relief assistance.

War between Ethiopia and Eritrea was a “huge challenge” to relief operations, Bertini said. But humanitarian programmes had to continue “no matter what governments are doing” as the region was “larger than the two countries in conflict”, she said. Almost 80 percent of the relief requirements in the Greater Horn of Africa are in Ethiopia. Bertini said there had been welcome reports of rainfall in different parts of the country since the last appeal.