UN Special Envoy to visit Eritrea
Aug 22, 2005 (Asmara) — The UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Humanitarian Crisis in the Horn of Africa, Mr. Martti Ahtisaari arrives today in Asmara, Eritrea.
During his two-day visit, the Special envoy will meet with senior officials of the Government of Eritrea, representatives of UN agencies, diplomatic corps based in Eritrea, the red cross movement and Non-Governmental Organizations, to discuss on the humanitarian situation since his last visit to the country in October 2004. In addition, he will exchange views on how best to support – the humanitarian needs in the remaining period of 2005 and in 2006, the return and reintegration of IDPs and rural expellees currently living in camps and ensure longer-term solutions including the reintegration challenges of about 120,000 returnees from Sudan.
Since his latest visit the Special Envoy has been highlighting the humanitarian and recovery needs of Eritrea to different humanitarian actors and donors at headquarters to keep the humanitarian plight of Eritreans high on their agenda.
Eritrea continues to endure the lingering effect of the border war and consecutive five years of drought — destroyed houses, mined villages, shattered livelihoods, hunger and high malnutrition. This has been further compounded by period of fragile peace, great economic hardship and competing urgent needs.
The 2005 main rainy season -Kremti has been performing well so far. Extensive agricultural activities are on going to improve the food production for the current season based on increasing the planted area and distributing agricultural inputs. According to the National Food Information System (NFIS), the area currently under cultivation is about 550,000 hectares or 23% more than that of 2004. Provided the rains continue to perform adequately into September it will have a positive impact on agricultural production this year.
Despite hopeful trends, widespread and severe food insecurity persists in the country. Five years of drought and the lingering effects of the border war compounded with the statuesque of “no war no peace” situation have stretched coping mechanisms of large groups of the population to the limit. This is further aggravated by the current economic challenges Eritrea is facing, thus relief needs will remain high throughout 2006.
The donor response to the Eritrea Consolidated Appeal 2005 stands at 81% against the total requirement of US $156.2 million; with food aid representing 73% of the total CAP requirement resourcing 98%. The status of funding for non-food sector is below 30% of the approximately US$ 41 million down revised need. There are some important funding gaps in key sectors that have affected, for example, seed distribution, and water supply, effective supplementary and therapeutic feeding and provision of basic health services schemes.
The National Nutritional Surveillance System reports indicate that malnutrition rates remain unacceptably high in many parts of the country. For instance, recent surveys in regions of Northern and Southern Red Sea indicate the prevalence of children under five years with global acute malnutrition (GAM) as 15.2% and 14.4% respectively. Low body mass index (BMI) in adult women found 49.8% and 43.4% respectively. This has been aggravated by the continuing shortfall of 16,000 MT of blended supplementary food in Eritrea.
This is the fifth visit of the Special Envoy to Eritrea since his appointment in June 2003. He and his entourage will depart Asmara for Addis Ababa on Thursday morning for a similar mission.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)