Despite good rains many remain hungry in Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, July 19, 2005 (PANA) — Despite the markedly
eased food insecurity trends in Ethiopia, many
at-risk pastoralists and vulnerable subsistent
peasants would require food assistance until the end
of the year, according to local and UN agencies
monitoring the situation.

Improved rainfall, increased food distributions and
non-food aid pledges over the past months have helped
ease extreme conditions, the agencies said in their
latest Food Security Update on Ethiopia.

According to a pre-harvest preliminary assessment,
based on the current rainy season, the number of
people in need of emergency assistance may increase by
between 2.5 and 3 million in the second half of 2005.

“While this will not change the peak number of 3.8
million emergency beneficiaries that was estimated in
May, it does mean that these people will need to
continue receiving food aid for a longer period of
time than originally estimated,” explains the
multi-agency assessment report.

Additional beneficiaries would translate into an
estimated additional emergency food aid requirement of
close to 200,000 tonnes.

The whole food aid pipeline and emergency food
security reserves appear to be sufficient till the end
of the year.

However, irregular and delayed distributions were
likely to result in serious nutritional consequences,
especially in drought and flood affected areas in
Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region
(SNNPR) and in the pastoral regions of Somali and
Afar.

The agencies have urged the government and donors to
ensure that pledged resources are delivered in a
timely and well-targeted way to highly food insecure
households.

According to the multi-agency pre-harvest assessment,
conducted between 23 June and 6 July 2005, the season
was generally good, despite excessive rains in some
areas and erratic and late rains in others.

“Despite the relatively good ‘belg’ rainy season,
humanitarian assistance will continue to be necessary
in a number of areas throughout the country during the
remainder of the year,” says the report.

This is attributed to, among other factors, inability
to recover from the previous season’s poor pasture and
water availability in pastoral areas,
under-utilisation of inputs (due to price increases),
high malnutrition rates compounded by inadequate
public health services and ethnic-based conflicts in
southern Oromiya and Afar regions.

Water shortages and inadequate public health services,
especially in pastoral areas, have exacerbated the
crisis.

In general, Ethiopia’s food and non-food aid needs are
expected to remain at their peak levels from July
through September.