WVE assesses drought impact in southern Ethiopia

By Samuel Mochona - WVE Communications

 World Vision Ethiopia has assessed the impact of drought in Kembata, Hadiya, Wolayita, West Arsi and Gedio zones in southern Ethiopia and the finding shows that 80% to 100% of Belg crops have failed.  Belg is the small harvest season when crops are grown through small rains from February to May and the harvest is accountable for about 40% of food.

According to the assessment conducted in 10 WV Area Development Programme (ADP) operation areas, food prices are also soaring up to more than 100% in some cases.

As a result, malnutrition is affecting children in the region and therapeutic feeding programme admission has increased by 35% to 200% and school dropout rate hit 7.2% to 7.8%.

Shone is one of the present drought affected areas. In the district, from the total 704 new admission of children to feeding centre in March, 263 (37%) are edematous and 43,362 people  need immediate food aid, the assessment indicated.

"In response to the crisis, World vision Ethiopia is strengthening the ongoing emergency nutrition programmes and submitting proposal to funding agencies like UN OCHA. National emergency preparedness reserve fund is requested and ADPs are also revising their budget for intermediate response," Mesfin Gezahegn, WVE Humanitarian Emergency Affairs Associate Director said.

Another Multi Agency Rapid assessment in Kembata Tembaro, Hadiya, Silti and Guraghe zones in the same region indicated that poor households in belg-rain receiving parts of southern and north-eastern Ethiopia are becoming increasingly food insecure as a result of poor crop and livestock production resulting from the late onset and below- average performance of the belg rains.

In the southern and south-eastern pastoralist areas, food security is likely to remain precarious due to the impact of repeated drought events in 2010 and 2011, and the below- normal rainfall expected during the current guu/ganna (April to June) season.

Ethiopia has been recovering from the food crises that affected 4.5 million people last year. Ethiopian government reported improvement in the situation in January 2012 that the total population in need of emergency assistance decreased from 4.5 to 3.2 million.