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 Ethiopia:
Facing the crisis and Finally admitted Hunger
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Dr.Abdullahi Mohamed (Deputy Editor Geeska Afrika
Online)
Djibouti (HAN) August 8th, 2008
Fight hunger - Walk the world - Addis Ababa
Full Comment: write- Geeska Afrika Online at:
news@geeskaafrika.com or han@geeskaafrika.com
2007
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Ethiopia:
Facing the crisis and Finally admitted Hunger
Djibouti (HAN) August 8th, 2008 - The
international and local Aid agencies familiar with the new
appeal say the government may ask for aid for as many as 8
million and accuse the government here of failing to admit the
severity of the crisis in time. Ethiopia has been eager to leave
behind a legacy of famine after a drought in the mid-1980s left
nearly 1 million to starve, which may explain why the country
was reticent to admit the severity of its latest crisis, they
say.
Now, even if the expanded appeal matches needs on the ground,
aid workers worry that it may already be too late, especially
amid global shortages of food.
"The Ethiopian government is facing the crisis and is ready to
admit figures it wouldn't admit in April and March," one Western
donor official said on condition of anonymity.
The EU today allocated an extra €21m in emergency aid to
Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, officials said.
"The challenges in the Horn of Africa are huge and multi-
dimensional ... Humanitarian aid is an expression of Europe's
solidarity with those who are the most vulnerable," EU Aid
Commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement.
Friday's decision allocates €13m in aid to Somalia, with
shelter, health care and water among the key targets. The EU's
executive, the European Commission, has already sent €14m in
food aid to the country this year, officials said.
It also sends €4m to Eritrea to provide food, water, sanitation
and basic health services. Since 2006, the commission has sent
€16m worth of aid to Eritrea.
And it sends a further €4m to Ethiopia for healthcare, water,
sanitation and the care of refugees. Since 2006, the commission
has sent the country almost €50m in aid.
Ethiopia: Ethiopian officials have said that the country will
increase its appeal to the international community for a third
time this year, criticizing donors for failing to commit
resources to a hunger crisis precipitated by drought and rising
food prices
"It is the humanitarian community's obligation to see that the
humanitarian needs are fulfilled," said Simon Mechale, who heads
the country's disaster relief agency. "The humanitarian
community has not been able to fully support what was jointly
established."
Ethiopia is still seeking funding from donors after appealing to
them in June for support to feed 4.6 million hungry people.
Ethiopian State Minister for Agriculture Abera Deresa said the
government would increase that number as early as next week,
though he declined to say by how many.
Aid workers familiar with the new appeal say the government may
ask for aid for as many as 8 million and accuse the government
here of failing to admit the severity of the crisis in time.
Ethiopia has been eager to leave behind a legacy of famine after
a drought in the mid-1980s left nearly 1 million to starve,
which may explain why the country was reticent to admit the
severity of its latest crisis, they say.
Now, even if the expanded appeal matches needs on the ground,
aid workers worry that it may already be too late, especially
amid global shortages of food.
"The Ethiopian government is facing the crisis and is ready to
admit figures it wouldn't admit in April and March," one Western
donor official said on condition of anonymity.
Donors can take weeks to raise cash and at least four months to
provide commodities from their own farmers. Once cash is
available, it can take as long as eight weeks to procure food
internationally and deliver it to Ethiopia.
In June, Ethiopian Minister of Health Tewodros Adhanom announced
an appeal to donors for a total of 380,000 metric tons of
emergency food this year to feed 4.6 million people, more than
twice the 2.2 million thought to have needed aid in April.
Tewodros argued then that the government had been carefully
prudent to avoid requesting too much aid.
"We always felt that there were more needy people," said David
Throp, who runs Save the Children UK's Ethiopian office. "We
welcome any acknowledgement of additional needs because it
allows the international community to respond, but now it's a
question of logistics and time-lags."
Relief efforts are already suffering from shortages after the
global spike in food and gasoline prices essentially cut the
purchasing power of the UN's World Food Program (WFP) in half.
Only half the needy are receiving food aid, and the rations they
receive have already been cut by a third to conserve resources.
According to a June report from the WFP, the worldwide prices of
staple foods like wheat and maize have nearly doubled since the
beginning of the decade, making it increasingly difficult for
international aid agencies to buy enough food to support
crisis-ridden regions.
At the Rome Food Summit in June, governments and international
aid agencies pledged to contribute an additional $6 billion to
help poorer countries cope with hunger amid increasing food
prices.
Food security experts say the global food crisis has emerged due
to a combination of factors, including climate changes that have
altered rainfall patterns and decreased harvests, increasing
demand for corn ethanol and other grains to fuel cars instead of
feeding people, and skyrocketing demand for meat -- which
requires large amounts of grain in the form of animal feed -- in
rapidly developing countries like China and India.
Economic speculators, who buy up grain reserves in anticipation
of selling them at higher prices, have also helped to decrease
supplies and increase global prices, say analysts.
"This troubling situation is unlike any the world has faced
before," says Earth Policy Institute President Lester Brown, who
has studied the convergence of ecological, economic, and
humanitarian issues for decades.
"The challenge is not simply to deal with a temporary rise in
grain prices, as in the past, but rather to quickly alter those
trends whose cumulative effects collectively threaten the food
security that is a hallmark of civilization."
Brown says that the world's most influential countries must act
swiftly to "stabilize population, restrict the use of grain to
produce automotive fuel, stabilize the climate, stabilize water
tables and aquifers, protect cropland, and conserve soils."
"None of these goals can be achieved quickly," he notes, "but
progress toward all is essential to restoring a semblance of
food security."
The Geeska Afrika Magazine Sources: AFP,
ENA and HAN staff -Addis Ababa
The Note Sources expressed
in this article do not necessarily represent the
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Board, www.geeskaafrika.com or our global
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