Ethiopia has made important development gains over the past two decades, reducing poverty and expanding investments in basic social services. However, food insecurity and malnutrition are still a major concern across the country. 

Multiple and often overlapping crises have severely weakened the ability of communities to cope with shocks, pushing millions of people into severe need and destitution. Recurrent conflict, droughts, diseases and inflation continue to drive humanitarian needs upwards, particularly in regions where productive assets and livelihoods have been eroded already because of protracted shocks. 

The overlap of high malnutrition rates, severe water scarcity coupled with disease outbreaks (malaria, measles, and cholera), and livestock emergencies have exacerbated food insecurity in the country, leaving millions of people to depend on humanitarian assistance for survival.

An estimated 10.2 million people require food support in 2024. This includes over 3 million internally displaced people who have had to leave their homes due to the 2020-2022 conflict in the north, severe drought in the south and southeast, and increased seismic activities and earthquakes along the Ethiopian Rift Valley.

Despite these challenges, the Government of Ethiopia’s five-year Growth and Transformation Plan aims to move the country to middle-income status by 2025, by sustaining rapid growth and speeding up structural transformation.

The World Food Programme plays a critical role in providing lifesaving food assistance to vulnerable people in drought and conflict-affected areas, and works with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

What the World Food Programme is doing in Ethiopia

Food security and nutrition
WFP provides unconditional food and cash transfers to the most vulnerable families across the country. In the northern Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions, WFP supplies food to people who have been uprooted or otherwise affected by conflict – alongside federal and regional authorities and NGO partners. In Somali Region, WFP also provides emergency food and cash assistance to families affected by severe drought. WFP supports 580,000 children and pregnant women with malnutrition treatment and prevention activities each month, including fresh-food vouchers..
Climate action and early-warning systems
WFP aims to break the cycle of food insecurity and poverty by building resilience, targeting 620,000 people in 2024 through access to inputs (including seeds and machinery), market access and training in post-harvest loss technologies and training. At the same time, WFP supports the Government of Ethiopia in conducting emergency food security assessments and market price monitoring, to best prepare for climate disasters. WFP is focusing on mitigating future climate-related shocks through early-warning systems and preparedness initiatives, like fodder cultivation and water-point restoration, to prevent the next drought from becoming a full-blown crisis. WFP’s Anticipatory Action activities are helping communities to prepare and protect their livelihoods in drought-prone Oromia, Somali and Southern regions, targeting over 200,000 people with early-warning messages, cash transfers and livestock-feed vouchers.
Refugees
WFP provides food and cash transfers, targeted nutrition programmes, school meals and support to boost the livelihoods of 900,000 refugees in camps across Ethiopia. WFP helps refugees with irrigation agriculture, natural-resource management and small-scale entrepreneurial skills, to help them and their host communities become more self-reliant and food secure.
School meals
WFP works with the Government and partners to improve nutrition and promote the education of over 400,000 children in the Amhara, Afar, Oromia, Tigray, and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ regions by providing school meals. WFP’s home-grown school feeding approach – where school meals are made with locally procured produce such as grains, pulses, vegetable oil and salt – brings additional benefits to vulnerable communities, including increased income for smallholder farmers and a boost to the local economy.
Social protection
WFP invests in developmental social protection and livelihood programmes to enhance community resilience against shocks, ultimately reducing the need for humanitarian assistance. We work with the Government to strengthen Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP). This includes filling gaps in government coverage through WFP operations, and training institutions.
Supply chain
Ethiopia hosts one of WFP’s largest supply chain operations, managing the movement of over 600,000 metric tons of food per year to more than 6,000 distribution points. We also provide food procurement services to partners, allowing them to respond promptly to food needs. WFP leads the Logistics Cluster, allowing humanitarian actors to access logistics services such as storage, transport and Information.

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Partners and donors

Achieving Zero Hunger is the work of many. Our work in Ethiopia is made possible by the support and collaboration of our partners and donors, including:
Australia Austria Belgium Canada UN Central Emergency Response Fund

Operations in Ethiopia

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Contacts

Office

Woreda 02, Bole Subcity, Ring Road opposite the cargo terminal PO Box 25584, Code 1000
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia

Phone
+251 115 515188
Fax
+251 115 514433
Email
wfp.ethiopia@wfp.org
For media inquiries
claire.nevill@wfp.org
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