FOCUS on new early warning system for pastoralists

A new early warning system (EWS) may prove a lifesaver for pastoralists living in Ethiopia's Somali region. When famine struck in 2000, tragically it was the rapidly escalating death toll that finally alerted the world to the crisis. But a British aid agency is now at the forefront of a system that will act as the eyes and ears of the international community and raise the alarm to any future crisis. For the first time ever an EWS has been devised to address the individual needs of up to 3.8 million nomadic pastoralists living in the drought-prone Somali region. The project – set up by Save the Children UK (SCUK) – will provide accurate details of potential famines in the harsh, arid climate of southeastern Ethiopia. "This early warning system will save lives and will prevent famines as long as there is a donor response," said John Graham, head of SCUK in Ethiopia. "This is the way to head off what happened in early 2000." SYSTEM GEARED TOWARDS PASTORALIST WAY OF LIFE Although an EWS already exists in Ethiopia, it is focused towards agriculturalists living primarily in the north of the country. But under the new scheme – which is expected to be fully up and running within two years – highly detailed information has been gleaned about the lives of pastoralists. Even at this early stage it is already winning plaudits. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) both used its inputs to establish 2002 quotas on food aid needed for Ethiopia. The FAO said its development had "strengthened substantially" needs assessments in pastoral areas like the Somali region. As a result of the system, this year an estimated 900,000 people will need emergency food aid in the region. The key to any effective EWS are accurate baselines – statistics that reveal how people live and can be used as a starting point for any assessments. The baselines – which have taken almost a year to compile – provide the starting point for all the information gleaned from the EWS. Within the EWS there are key indicators to alert organisations to potential droughts or famines. For instance, if the price of livestock drops and grain prices rise, it is an indication that people are selling their livestock – an asset – in order to meet their immediate hunger needs through grain. Other examples are communities selling milk - a sign that they may be facing shortages. CREDIBILITY OF INFORMATION But the critical factor of the EWS in the Somali region is the interaction with rainfall. The system will answer questions about the impact on the pastoralists of late rains or if the rains fail. A team from SCUK, and other organisations, has spent a year building up the baseline data and ensuring their accuracy. "It is about having really credible information, and so if you don’t need something, we say no," added Graham. "You avoid crying wolf. We can make sure we get credible information, but we can’t guarantee that donors will respond." His organisation – the largest SCUK programme anywhere in the world – says if the EWS had been up and running in 2000, the famine that year would have been averted. Cassandra Chapman, who heads Emergency and Food Security for SCUK in Ethiopia, pointed out that it was not until April 2000, when the first television pictures emerged from the region, that the international community started to react. For many pastoralists, it was too late. But under the EWS, donors were more likely to respond, because they had "bought into" the system and trusted it, she said. Furthermore, donors did not want to make the same mistakes as in 2000. ATTRACTIVE TO DONORS The attraction for donor organisations is that the system can accurately pinpoint areas in need and the amount of assistance required. Like the crisis of 2000, many famines are extremely localised. The system can also save millions of dollars by providing a true picture of the needs. The scheme has also brought in numerous other nongovernmental organisations and the United Nations, and has been undertaken with the full partnership of the Ethiopian government. "By involving other organisations, the scheme has been strengthened, because everyone has a part to play," Chapman added. "The Ethiopian government already has its own early warning system - one of the best in the Horn of Africa - to flag potential disasters and famines," she said. "But the difficulty has always been tracking and gaining an insight into the lives of the pastoralists... You have to have an early warning system that is focused on conditions in the Somali region, which are pastoral conditions and insecurity. "We also plan that whatever lessons we learn from the Somali region system are fed into other areas of the country where there are very large pastoral and agro-pastoral populations," she said. Without the EWS, aid organisations are often fumbling in the dark and will over-react when they do not need to and under-react when food is needed. Graham, who has worked in the country for the last five years, added: "No-one really understands how these people survive, nor what is their basis for livelihood. "That fundamental lack of understanding of how people make their living has been the biggest block to responding when you need to respond, and to understanding when you don’t need to respond in a massive way," he said. "This system avoids all that. It will allow donor organisations to make the right decisions that ultimately will save people’s lives."