In Ethiopia, there are currently more than 10 million people who have been affected by drought. Some 6.2 million people are threatened by hunger and malnutrition and require urgent food assistance.
The deteriorating situation is compounded by high food prices – the cost of cereals has more than doubled in many markets since the beginning of the year, hampering the ability of many people to meet even their most basic food needs and impoverishing them further. Seasonal food security assessments estimate the numbers in need could rise, leading to a deepening of the food and nutrition emergency, particularly in the south-west and south-eastern parts of the country.
In the predominantly pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of the Somali region, an ongoing conflict combined with drought has complicated the delivery of assistance. Since the mid-1990s, WFP has maintained a continuous presence and operations in the Somali region. In recent years, food assistance has been the main form of external aid received by poor and hungry households, and WFP has responded to drought and floods with relief food distributions on a large scale. Current funding and in-country food stocks available to WFP in Ethiopia are inadequate to respond to the humanitarian needs.
WFP has had to reduce the emergency food ration by one third – just when food assistance is critically required. In 2009, WFP is assisting a total of eleven million people in Ethiopia through interventions that include assistance to drought-affected households, malnourished children under the age of five and to pregnant and breast-feeding mothers, to school children, people affected by HIV/AIDS, refugees and communities working on land, soil and environmental rehabilitation activities. Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country and is home to more than 77 million people.
An ancient land with roots stretching back thousands of years, Ethiopia is in many ways culturally, linguistically and historically distinct from much of the rest of the continent. It is a least developed country ranked 171 out of 182 countries in the UNDP Human Development Index for 2009. High rates of malnutrition, one of the lowest primary education enrolment rates in the world and a relatively small, though increasing HIV/AIDS prevalence, are all issues of concern for the Government of Ethiopia and the humanitarian community.
WFP is working to connect farmers in Ethiopia to markets through the Purchase for Progress initiative. Learn more
WFP Ethiopia procures and delivers food to warehouses, with the government undertaking onward transport. With six major droughts in just two decades, many families never have time to recover from one calamity before another befalls them, wiping out crops, animals and what few assets they have managed to scrape together. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of survival every year. WFP’s Ethiopia Country Programme from 2007 to 2011 consists of two core components: Food for Assets and Food for Education.
The Food for Assets and livelihood enhancement operation, known as ‘MERET’, currently reaches an average of 610,000 beneficiaries in 500 different communities each year. It focuses on managing environmental resources to increase food productivity in food-insecure communities.
The School Meals component focuses on a community based approach to support both formal education and to develop schools into community resource centres, able to promote good nutrition and environmental awareness. WFP also provides support to people affected by HIV/AIDS, pregnant and nursing mothers and children suffering from or threatened by malnutrition.
Ethiopia is currently host to almost 119,000 Sudanese, Somali and Eritrean refugees. The goal of WFP’s work is to improve and/or maintain nutritional standards of the refugees until external conditions allow for their repatriation.
The recovery component of the operation includes reforestation and soil conservation activities using food-for-assets to help reverse environmental damage attributable to the extended residence of refugees, and to improve the food security of refugees and the local host communities.
