No time to lose - WFP

The head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), James Morris, on Tuesday warned there was no time to lose in sending food supplies to Ethiopia. "The crisis barometer is inching out of the danger zone, but the needs are so colossal, so urgent and so desperate, we must do everything humanly possible to avoid a sudden slip downward," he said at the end of a five-day visit to Ethiopia. "Even a brief interruption of food supplies could spell death for the most vulnerable," he warned, according to a WFP press release. WFP intends to cover about 40 percent of the country's food aid needs, and still requires 350 tons of food aid, the statement said. Some 11 million people are at risk of food shortages in Ethiopia, along with two thirds of the population in neighbouring Eritrea. "If we are to help break this chronic cycle of emergencies, we simply must make major investments to help people withstand climatic shocks," Morris added. "Comparatively, it takes so little money today to stimulate greatly improved lives for people tomorrow." Meanwhile, Britain's International Development Secretary Clare Short on Monday signed a 10-year partnership deal with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Short, who arrived in Addis Ababa on Sunday, called for sustainable economic development for the country. "Ethiopia suffers from desperately high levels of poverty and will not be safe from repeated famine without sustainable economic development which requires economic health, improved education and healthcare," she said, according to a press release. The statement noted that Britain's Department for International Development's humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia now amounted to GBP 45 million.