By Nadia Khan
20 July 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Aid and relief organizations are responding to the urgent need for an increase in support for Ethiopia as a result of the compounding effects of drought and the global food crisis. The World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other non-government organizations are working with the Ethiopian government to get food and medical supplies to the 4.6 million Ethiopians in need of aid.
“In humanitarian terms, the situation is unacceptable,” said Dr. Eric Laroche, Assistant Director-General for WHO’s Heath Action in Crisis Cluster, “The health of millions of Ethiopians is worsening by the day, and the international community must act to support the country’s government to ease this terrible suffering.”
Paul Garwood, Communications Officer for WHO’s Heath Action in Crisis Cluster told MediaGlobal, “These areas require urgent assistance and the Government of Ethiopia, WHO, UNICEF, WFP and other members of the international humanitarian community are working to provide this assistance to Ethiopians.”
Along with the increase in medical supplies, disease and nutrition surveillance, water treatment and sanitations promotion, and therapeutic feeding programmes from the WHO, the United Nations World Food Programme is boosting their support for Ethiopia as well.
Currently, the WFP’s programmes in Ethiopia are supporting 3.2 million people in need of food assistance. The WFP now plans on expanding those programmes to support the 4.6 million Ethiopians now in distress.
Despite a 369,000 metric-ton shortfall of food supplies, the WFP remains focused on supplying aid to those most in need. Peter Smerdon of the World Food Programme in Nairobi told MediaGlobal that “for Africa, it is all direct food assistance, but some of the food is for food distributions and supplementary feeding and some of it is for projects like food for work and food for assets, whereby people will build dams to help them grow more food.”
However, a lack of funding and resources still plagues those organizations trying to aid Ethiopians and other countries affected by drought in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti). Financial support in an emergency situation requires an additional $430 million, according to Deputy Prime Minister Addisu Legesse when addressing parliament earlier this week.
Unfortunately, the government of Ethiopia is estimating that only one-third of the necessary funds have been received and urge benefactors to come forward. “Ethiopia is facing a perfect storm with soaring food prices and devastating drought,” commented WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran, and “we hear the government’s plea, and support it, and are moving to reach all we can.”
The WFP aims to reach the 750,000 of the most vulnerable Ethiopians, including children, pregnant mothers and HIV-AIDS patients with immediate emergency support. According to Smerdon, “most of it will be food distribution and supplementary feeding,” for both Ethiopia and the greater areas in the Horn of Africa.
“Because of the drought and rising food prices we are focusing now on short-term life-saving assistance rather than supporting long-term sustainable development because we need to save lives now because malnutrition is rising,” Smerdon added.
Although, long-term goals for sustainable living do not go unforgotten: “We do more development when the countries are not gripped by an emergency because it is hard enough to raise funds during emergencies and would be almost impossible to raise them for emergencies and development at the same time.” The WHO and WFP are not alone; UNICEF also has programs on the ground to provide immediate feeding to 75,000 severely malnourished children.