Making the most of emergency aid

The expectation that Ethiopia will enjoy a bumper food harvest this year has led the government and its humanitarian partners to adopt a new policy towards emergency needs and allocating resources.

“The new approach is a shift from the old strategy of sending food aid monthly to those in need,” said Sisay Tadesse, spokesman for the government’s Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency (DPPA). “We are adopting it because the number of those in need of emergency assistance has dropped to 1.36 million – a reduction we have not seen in decades.”

An estimated 2.6 million needed emergency assistance in 2006. This number excluded another 7.7 million Ethiopians who are being assisted under the Productive Safety Nets Programme.

Initiated by the government in 2005, the safety nets programme is a relief-to-development strategy that the authorities hope can end food-aid dependency for millions within three to five years. It is an agro-based food-for-work scheme where local people build wells or small irrigation systems and work on projects to help prevent soil erosion in exchange for food or cash transfers.

“The improvement has been due to effective food security strategies and favourable weather,” Sisay added. “Both the belg [short] and meher [long] rains have been very good. Infrastructure has also improved so we can reach the needy more easily.”

According to the DPPA, 71 percent of those who will need assistance this year are from Somali region and 17 percent from Oromiya. The rest of the country will fare well, with some of the eight regions not needing any emergency help at all.

Aid workers say the numbers of those in need of emergency food aid could have been lower, were it not for widespread flooding in the south, where an estimated 700 people died and nearly 700,000 were affected; dry spells in pastoral areas, especially in the Somali region; localised agricultural production failure and other shocks.

According to Simon Mechale, director of DPPA, 507,600 tonnes of food aid and US$111 million worth of non-food emergency assistance were needed because of flooding and drought in 2006 – of which a substantial amount was raised jointly by the government and the humanitarian community.

The challenges facing Somali region remain huge. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), crop production is expected to be lower than normal because of repeated flooding in the main riverine areas – including areas that lie along the Shebelle, Genale and Dawa rivers. The situation has also been exacerbated by insecurity.

New approach

In the past, the magnitude of emergency food assistance and intervention was determined by annual assessments conducted in November and December. Under this arrangement, resources were determined in advance for each district on a monthly basis.

Under the new policy, such assessments will be used as broad national estimates of food emergency aid needs for the purposes of contingency planning and mobilising resources. Specific allocations will only be made after more assessments are done and actual needs identified.

“When the need arises, we send a regional assessment mission to verify the exact situation before we can send food,” Sisay said.

However, aid agencies urged caution. “The current wet cycle is positive, but it could go back to a dry period,” said a director of an international agency in Ethiopia, who asked not to be named. “There is also a need to integrate markets so that excess food production in the south can be bought to offset the deficit in the north. Some regions have in the past had bumper harvests, but food aid was brought into those regions that did not have good production.”

Another aid worker, citing 2006 when severe drought affected parts of the Somali region and Borena zone of Oromiya before floods devastated many parts of the country, said the success of the new policy would also require a high level of preparedness and response capacity.

The new policy was initiated by the National Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Committee, chaired by the deputy prime minister. When implemented correctly, several aid workers argue, it is likely to lead to more improved assessments, better resource use and more effective impact.

Bumper crop forecast

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme, aggregate cereal and pulse production in Ethiopia in the 2006-2007 season is estimated at 20.1 million tonnes, about 10 percent above the previous year’s post-harvest estimate and 53 percent above the average of the previous five years.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and subsistence farmers account for 85 percent of its 77 million people. Most live in rural areas, below the international poverty line of US$1 a day.

“Things look good, but there are still humanitarian issues that we need to address in 2007,” said Paul Hebert, head of OCHA in Ethiopia. “There is an opportunity to improve assessment, contingency planning and preparedness for the inevitable emergencies that will occur in 2007."

According to aid workers, areas that need the attention of humanitarian actors include Afar and Oromiya regions.

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