ETHIOPIA: Humanitarian Response Requires One Billion Dollars

Ethiopia needs one billion dollars in order to pay for its humanitarian response efforts in 2020, according to UN officials. Most of the money will be spent to provide life-saving assistance to seven million Ethiopians, 81pc of who are children and women, the UN estimates.

To date, only 10.5pc of this requirement has been secured from international assistance, the United States being the largest donor by far. Germany and the UK follow.

Beside the usual vulnerability to drought, locust infestations have affected 173 weredas across seven of the nine regional states. The federal government is finalising a countrywide assessment to determine the impact on food production from the locust invasions seen beginning in late 2019.

Ongoing conflict among communities and a military operations in half of the weredas in the western Wellega Zone of Oromia Regional State continue to cause large numbers of displacement. Close to 200,000 people have been displaced in Guji, West Guji and West Wellega zones and have remained "without adequate assistance" for months, says the UN.

Mitiku Kassa, commissioner for the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, recently briefed the international community in Geneva, Switzerland, about the "frequency and intensity" of recurrent drought in Ethiopia.

Since 2017 though, he said, "the country has also been dealing with the unfortunate consequences of inter-community conflict."