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Unfathomable endeavor to ensure food security
Fekadu W.
Amhara State has granted assistance to victims affected by drought in various localities of Oromiya State on March 20, 2017; people to people assistance and part of the effort to save lives. The assistance was consigned to Borena, west Guji localities of Oromiya. It has granted 5,000 quintals of wheat and two water tankers used to transport water until the end of malignant effect of drought and time of proper recuperation from drought.
Indubitably, the assistance granted by the Amhara State has tangibly witnessed the importance of interdependence between states and the significance of compassionate assistance of people to people and its immediate relief to victims. This kind of interdependence is being encouraged and strengthened to last between various governments of a nation.
Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen on March 10, 2017 stated that, the government is providing food, non-food items and fodder to human beings and animals in drought-affected areas. Besides, various alternatives are being considered to save lives, minimize the misery of animals and safeguard resources as intact as possible.
The United Nations Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) disclosed around 12.8 million people are facing severe food insecurity in east Africa. Of these 5.6 million are Ethiopians, 2.7 million Kenyans, 2.9 million Somalis, and 1.6 million Ugandans. Somalia and South Sudan have already declared the famine in parts of their territories. The vast majority of those impacted by the drought overwhelming East Africa are women and children.
UNOCHA had at the same time commended on Ethiopia for responding well to the El Niño induced drought that walloped the country hard (like any other country) and resulted in exigent need to distribute food assistance to millions of people.
In the case of Ethiopia, the southern and eastern pastoral areas of Ethiopia, which are particularly prone to recurring drought, are reportedly undergoing poor, delayed and erratic rains that curbed pasture and water availability. Given donors are reluctant to provide the required amount of support in time, the government and relief agencies operating in Ethiopia are trying to solve it by their own; drought consuming huge budget may hamper development endeavors and possibly curtail budgets allocated to sustainable development and poverty alleviation.
Ethiopia is striving to the top of its capacity to cope with the residual needs arising from last year’s El Niño-induced drought. Below average rains in the southern and eastern parts of the country were caused by La Niña and the negative Indian Ocean Dipole, other climatic phenomena that exposed millions of people to urgent food and non-food assistance.
Furthermore, close to 100 refugees fleeing the drought in Somalia are daily crossing into Ethiopia at a time when it is hosting over 800,000 refugees. All this factors are compounding problems and posing challenges on efforts being exerted to seek long-term solutions.
The government is working hard to minimize the impact of drought and to curb the occurrence of further harm that may encounter animals in the areas known to have been affected with drought, including Borena, Somali region and Guji and South Omo zone of Southern Peoples Sates. To this end, due to its urgency, the government has set deep wells dug earlier to be operational and save the lives of farmers, pastoralists and animals. Abreast of supply of relief, the government has set mechanism to control the transport, storage, supply and proper access of victims to the relief materials.
What is wonderful is that, the nation managed to cope with the effect of drought more of by its own, allocate additional budget and protect citizens from mortality caused by drought. Perhaps, the capacity of the nation to allocate more budgets and insulate its citizens from the caustic effects of drought has made donors to turn their faces to other countries that publicize more serious victimization (but it is too early to shun countries like Ethiopia and let them stand by their own. Ethiopia needs some more years to become self-sufficient and independent of donation, though the volume of foreign donation for disaster is decreasing with time)
The government has allocated over two billion Birr to prevent the effect of drought. It shows that, the government has attached prime importance to the provision of assistance, sustainable rehabilitate citizens and decreases their chance of vulnerability, through sustainable development and safety-net programs designed to this purpose. Specially, the government is interested to undertake drought prevention activities in a manner that may not impinge on the implementation of the Growth and Transformation Plan-II (GTP-II).
Currently, the focus is on preventing deaths and rehabilitating drought-victim citizens using homegrown capacity and the assistance of donors. However, some are claiming that it is essential to explore the means to end famine once and for all. They said, though the issue of why Ethiopia is repeatedly buffeted by drought is perennially raised, no definitive solution has been found to date.
The question that naturally follows as to them is why is the country still incapable of developing the ability to withstand the recurrent impacts of drought and alleviate its devastation inflicted on the livelihoods of citizens? The situation cannot be allowed to continue and it calls for a holistic approach and evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses geared towards disaster prevention, particularly drought.
Despite the very fact that Ethiopia cannot currently curb the effect of drought once and for all, it has travelled a long way since the famines of 1974 and 1984-1984 that scandalously blighted thousands of citizens. During the aforementioned times, let alone building domestic capacity of food supply and a reliable government coffer to purchase food from abroad, there was not enough road infrastructures to supply imported and donated food to various spots where citizens were desperately queuing for a single meal.
Unlike two decades ago, currently Ethiopia has become the lead investor in its own survival. After more than a decade of strong economic growth, the government has been able to divert huge flows of domestic revenue into the drought response, about USD800 million across 18 months (the country’s aid partners have contributed another $700 million). The result has been perhaps the largest drought-relief effort that the world has ever seen. Even, some say other southern African nations could take valuable lessons from Ethiopia regarding building resilience against the climate pressures ahead.
Ethiopia has dealt with multiple droughts since 1984, including severe ones in 2000 and 2011. Until a final solution of reliable prevention of drought and famine, the country has put in place Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), a prevention initiative, designed to coordinate a monthly distribution of food rations to people chronically at risk. In return, recipients provide labor to build roads, schools, health posts, food storage warehouses, and water reservoirs. The PSNP also includes regular assessments of damage to farms and of the scope and urgency of nutritional needs, data that helps warn of potential crises.
Ethiopia is in a very different place today than it was earlier. Three decades ago, Ethiopia was fragmented and unable to respond adequately. Today, it enjoys two decades of stability, a decade of strong economic growth, and decades of experience successfully implementing a large-scale food security effort – the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP).
Contrary to unfounded allegations, Ethiopia is witnessing drought resilience approach being guided by the resilience policy. A growing body of evidence confirms that households are better able to withstand and recover from moderate shocks without compromising their food security status, if they have the right mix of resilience capacities. These take a wide range of forms, including improved agricultural production, non-climate sensitive income sources, basic education, and even increased social cohesion.
Let alone supply of food, through miraculous economic development, Ethiopia has managed to lift over 27 millions of people out of the mire of grinding poverty and enhanced their income to improve their status of living and proudly buy their own food. The effort has continued in multi-pronged directions. Currently, numerous mega-projects including the GERD are being undertaken eyed at enhancing national income and lifting millions of citizens out of poverty once and for all.
Various non-governmental institutions, including UNOCHA have witnessed that, Ethiopia is building robust disaster risk management system compared to the previous times. The Nation is more robust and resilient to cope with the impacts of El Niño compared to the drought times that occurred earlier. The government is prodding hard to achieve more encouraging results regarding food security. And, unfathomable endeavor is being exerted non-stop until reaching the level of food security and self-reliance on domestic productivity.
The Nation is recording dazzling development and it is renew its name for rapid and double-digit economic-growth due to implementation of pro-poor policies and strategies in the past ten years. Currently, to be resilient enough to the recurrent climatic changes, including the current drought induced by El Nino, Ethiopia is conducting its development programs eyed at registering double digit growth, parallel to implementing nationwide relief programs with better institutional and programmatic capacity to mitigate the adverse effects of El- Nino.
