EVALUATION
OF THE
1988 ETHIOPIAN
DROUGHT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Submitted to: USAID/Ethiopia FUA Africa Bureau
Submitted by: Nancy Metcalf Ellen Patterson Brown Michael Glantz Hope Sukin
DEVRES, INC. 7201 Wisconsin Avenue Suite 500 Bethesda, MD 20814 Cable: DEVRES WASHINGTON Telex: 440184
Contract No. PDC-0085-I-00-6095-00-21
March 1989 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Evaluation Team would like to express its gratitude to the many persons both in Washington and in the field who gave of their time, experience and expertise in helping carry out this evaluation of the US Emergency Assistance Program for Ethiopia during 1987-88. Their frank assessments of the program and its successes and shortcomings provided guidance to the team on the appropriate focus for the evaluation and the most important aspects of the program to be analyzed for future programming guidance.
The Government of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, USAID/Ethiopia, the US Embassy, private voluntary organizations and international and UN organizations all gave generously of their time. Without their help it would have been impossible to cover the necessary ground in the three weeks spent in Ethiopia.
The USAID, government and voluntary and international agency personnel who assisted the team during their field trips provided an invaluable opportunity to look at on-going program and project operations and their impacts.
A special thank-you goes to Amsaletch and Aster without whose help this report could never have been done.
Nancy Metcalf Team Leader
Ellen Patterson Brown Sociologist/Anthropologist
Hope Sukin Health/Nutrition
Michael Glantz Environmental Scientist
i LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
AID Agency for International Development AJDC American Joint Distribution Committee AMC Agriculture Marketing Corporation CRDA Christian Relief and Development Association CRS Catholic Relief Services
CRS-MC CRS-Missionaries of Charity CRS-MCH CRS-Mother Child Health CSA Central Statistics Authority DCC Development Coordination Committee ECS Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat
EECHY Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus EOC Ethiopian Orthodox Church EWS Early Warning System EEWS Ethiopian Early Warning System FA Farmers Association
FHI Food for the Hungry International FIS Food Information System GPDRE Government of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia HCS Hararghe Catholic Secretariat ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
JRP Joint Relief Partnership (Formerly Church Drought Action Africa) LICROSS League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies LWF Lutheran World Federation MOA Ministry of Agriculture MT Metric Tons
NGO Non-governmental Organization NMSA National Meteorological Service Agency OXFAM/UK Oxford Famine Relief/United Kingdom PA Peasant Association PVO Private Voluntary Organization
RRC Relief and Rehabilitation Commission SAVE Save the Children/USA SCF/UK Save tht Children/United Kingdom UNDRO UN Disaster Relief Office UNEPPG UN Office for Emergency Prevention and Preparedness
iii UNHCR UN High Commission for Refugees UNICEF UN Childrens Fund USAID US Agency for International Development USG United States Government WFP World Food Program
WTOE World Food Program Transport Operation in Ethiopia WVRO World Vision Relief Organization (Also known as World Vision Relief and Development)
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... i
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ...... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v
LIST OF TABLES ...... xiii
LIST OF FIGURES ...... xv
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... xvii
I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
A. Purpose, Scope and Methodology of the Evaluation 1
B. Overview of Ethiopia's Drought History . . . . 1
C. Emergency in Ethiopia Impact upon an Already "At Risk" Population ...... 2
D. The 1988 Drought Emergency ...... 2
E. The Donor Response ...... 2
II. EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS IN ETHIOPIA ...... 5
A. Introduction ...... 5
B. The Political Context of Early Warning in Ethiopia ...... 5 C. A Brief Overview of the Ethiopian Early Warning System ...... 6
D. Other Ethiopian Early Warning Systems ...... 8
E. Other Early Warning Systems ...... 14
F. What Actually Happened with EEWS in 1987 and the 1988 Emergency ...... 14
G. Conclusions and Recommendations ...... 22
v III. FOOD NEEDS ASSESSMENTS ...... 27
A. Introduction ...... 27
B. Differing Mechanisms Used in Defining Needs ...... 27
C. Timing of Needs Assessments ...... 28
D. What the Food Needs Assessment for 1988 Indicated ...... 29
E. The Importance of Logistical Capacity, Infrastructure and Political Conditions in Needs Assessments ...... 29
F. Conclusions and Recommendation ...... 34
IV. THE US RESPONSE TO THE 1988 DROUGHT EMERGENCY ...... 35
A. Introduction ...... 35
B. The Level and Timing of the U.S. Response 35
C. The Objectives of the US and Other Donors in Mounting Their Early Response Programs 36
D. Program Implementation ...... 36
E. Conclusions and Recommendations ...... 55
V. IMPACT OF THE EMERGENCY FOOD PROGRAM ...... 59
A. Introduction ...... 59
B. The Social Impact of Emergency Food Distribution ...... 63
C. Targeting Populations ...... 66
D. Rations ...... 69
E. The Nutritional Impact of Emergency Food Distribution ...... 70
F. Conclusions and Recommendations ...... 79
-Vii Page
VI. AGRICULTURAL RECOVERY ...... 85
A. Introduction ...... 85
B. The Condition of Farmers in 1984/85 and 1987/88 ...... 85
C. The Impact of the Agricultural Rehabili tation Projects ...... 88
D. Conclusions and Recommendation ...... 89
VII. REGULAR PVO FOOD AID PROGRAMS ...... 91
A. Introduction ...... 91
B. The Role of the US PVOs and the Contribu tion of Their Regular Programs to the Emergency Relief Effort ...... 92
C. The Impact of Regular Programs on Drought Preparedness and Famine Prevention ...... 95
D. Conclusions and Recommendations ...... 98
VIII. THE U.S. RESPONSE TO THE 1987/88 FOOD EMERGENCIES; CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 101
A. Major Recommendations ...... 101
B. Early Warning Systems ...... 102
C. Food Needs Assessment ...... 103
D. The US Response ...... 104
E. Program Impact ...... 105
F. Agricultural Recovery ...... 107
G. Regular Food Aid Programs ...... 107
ix ANNEX 1: Scope of Work
ANNEX 2: Early Warning Systems: An Overview
ANNEX 3: Questionnaires Used By Evaluation Team On Field Trips and Interviews
ANNEX 4: Summary of 1988 US Supported Voluntary Agency Emergency Relief Programs
ANNEX 5: Bibliography
xi LIST OF TABLES
Table Number
1 USAID/ADDIS Food Need Assessent CY 1988 Food Deficit ...... 30
2 FAO Estimates of Cereal Import and Food Aid Requirement for 1988 ...... 32
3 Number of People Likely to Depend Entirely on Relief Food in 1988 ...... 33
4 USG Food Aid Assistance to Ethiopia, FY 1988 ...... 37 5 USG Non-Food Aid Assistance to Ethiopia, FY 1988 ...... 38
6 Final Report on 1988 Emergency Food Aid . 39
7 1988 Non-Food Relief Pledges ...... 40
8 1988 Stocks Carried Over Into 1989 ...... 45
9 Location and Number of People Affected 1984-88 ...... 47 10 RRC Preliminary Report on Food Distri butions - Eritrea, Tigray, Wello, Gonder . . . 48
11 1988 JRP Relief Activity ...... 51
12 Agricultural Recovery Programs ...... 86
xiii LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Number Paize
1 Generalized Rainfall Regimes ...... 15
2 Histograms of the Mean Monthly Rainfall (mm) of Selected Stations ...... 17
3 Nutritional Status and Trends, Wollo, 1987-88 ...... 74 4 Nutritional Status and Trends, Showa, 1987-88 ...... 76 5 Nutritional Status and Trends, Hararghe, 1987-88 ...... 78
xv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A. Purpose. Scope and Methodology
The principal purposes of the evaluation were to assess the timeliness, appropriateness and impact of the U.S. emergency response, to the 1987-88 Ethiopian Emergency, analyze the importance of the in place U.S. government and voluntary agency infrastructure in this response; examine the results to date of drought preparedness and famine prevention projects; and make recommendations on future progrnmming.
'he scope of the evaluation (see Annex 1) illustrates the many issues dealt with during the course of the preparation, field work and writing of the evaluation report.
Methodologically, the Team relied heavily upon secondary source review, interviews and observations, both in Washington, D.C. and Ethiopia.
B. Ovei.-iew
1. Background
The 1987-88 Emergency was not Ethiopia's first. In fact, famine has been a recurrent feature of Ethiopian history. The first recorded occurrence dates from the 13th century. In the last one hundred years, there have been 10 famines, including the great famine of 1888-92 in which as many as one-third of Ethiopia's people died. In recent decades, famine has repeatedly struck northern Ethiopia: Wello and Tigray in 1953, Tigray in 1958, and Wello in 1966 and 1974. The famine of 1983-85 was exceptional among recent famines in that it encompassed most of the country. The causes of Ethiopian famines are rarely singular. More typically, famines have been caused by drought, but may also have encompassed erratic or unseasonable rainfall or hail that damaged crops, outbreaks of agricultural pests such as locusts, epidemics of human or animal diseases, regressive agricultural policies and war.
In 1984, the world came to know, through the nightly television news broadcasts, the tragic plight of famine victims in Ethiopia. By the end of 1984, with nearly 8 million people in Ethiopia considered at risk of death due to starvation, appeals were made for 1.3 million metric tons of food, in addition to millions of dollars in other emergency relief supplies. The response was tremendous. Over 1.5 million metric tons of emergency food were distributed over two years, reaching an estimated 7.1 million people. Concurrently, nearly one billion dollars was provided by the international community in non-food relief aid,
xvii logistical support and recovery programs. More than 60 organizations directly administered relief assistance, receiving donations from 36 different governments and innumerable individuals and private organizations.
Ethiopia's 1986 harvest was the best in four years and it was hoped that an end had finally come to the terrible food crisis that had effected Ethiopia's starting in 1983. Because of this hopeful sign, A.I.D. made a determination to phase down its Mission and program. It was decided to retain a minimal presence, discontinuing emergency food assistance in favor of a few, selected regular NGO programs and to leave one A.I.D. foreign service officer in Addis to monitor and manage this on-going assistance. The regular program level was to be capped at 22,000 MT. This optimism and strategy were short-lived.
2. The Food Emergency
In the last half of 1987 there were numerous signs that there was a developing food emergency. Grain prices went up and livestock' prices went down during the "hungry"-season (June - September) of 1987 as they usually do but stayed that way during the harvest months of October to December. Large numbers of people were observed selling firewood and charcoal along the roads. By August a slow trickle of people moving into other areas had begun.
The formal and informal early warning systems of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC). other government and international organizations and on-the-ground NGOs all signaled a possible food emergency as early as June. In August 1987 the RRC reacted. By mid- June 1987 NGOs supplied the RRC with information about the food situation in their areas of operation and warned their donor organizations, such as USAID, of a possible impending food emergency. The RRC, having considered this information and information it had collected and pressured by the UN, issued a warning in August 1987 of a food emergency which might affect 5.2 million people. This announcement gave donors a strategic advantage and allowed alert missions like USA.I.D to call forward food early in the emergency.
The U.S. led other donors in responding rapidly and generously. The U.S. made an immediate food pledge of 114,252 MT. Other donors followed with generous pledges.
In November, 1987 the RRC. FAO and USA.I.D/Addis Ababa came out with their official assessments/estimates of the 1987/88 food crops. These assessments gave actors in the food emergency a confirmation of the magnitude of problem. With the information now at its disposal the RRC started making tactical decisions about which areas and how many people there would be at risk. The US committed a second tranche of 136,240 Mt.
xviii By Nov. 1987 most U.S. NGOs who already had a logistical infrastructure for carrying out their regular programs increased their coverage. As a result of U.S.A.I.D.'s early pledge of food they were able to borrow grain from the RRC's emergency food reserve. NGOs with food in the pipeline for regular FFW programs began to preposition food and start emergency feeding. With staff and a logistical infrastructure already in drought-stricken areas, most NCOs had an important headstart in planning and programming. Particularly important for an early response to the growing food problem were: (1) food available in the NGO pipeline and access to the food security reserve; (2) a truck fleet in good repair - especially small, 4-wheel-drive trucks; (3) warehouses; and, (4) personnel with experience from 1984-86.
In the early months of 1988, the RRC. NGOs and local Natural Disaster Prevention Committees modified NGOs areas of operation and refined estimates of people at-risk. As NGOs on the ground carried out emergency food distributions the situation became clearer. Many NCOs, in conjunction with local and regional Natural Disaster Prevention Committees (made up of local party people, the local RRC representative, and the representatives of Peasant Associations), made what they considered better estimates of the numbers at risk and of the extent of the food emergency. In many cases the new numbers were acceptable to the RRC and party officials but, in some, disagreement over beneficiaries led to underprogramming of food requirements and resulted in serious deterioration of nutritional status.
In 1987/88 Ethiopia's transportation infrastructure continued, as in 1984/85, to limit the amount of assistance that could be moved from the ports to the targeted populations. Ethiopia has a single functioning rail line, a limited road network, ready access to only three ports, and one of the world's most rugged terrains. Compounding the natural barriers were civil insurrections that severely limited the use of roads in the northern third of the country and took trucks away from relief efforts in order to support the war effort. The transport fleets that had been built up during the 1984-85 drought had also severely deteriorated. Donors replaced trucks, provided spare parts and maintenance and mounted a large-scale emergency airlift operation for the north. Only this intense effort enabled donors to deliver the major part of the pledged assistance to the at-risk areas.
3. Political Setting
As the drought reappeared in 1987 important political factors affected the emergency response. The two most important factors were the continuing and escalating revolutionary activities in the north and the cool state of Ethiopian-western country relations, particularly with the United States. The northern insurgencies disrupted transport and distribution to at least half of those in need, and when expatriates
xix were removed in April 1988, objective observation of conditions in the north became impossible. The relationship between western donors and GPDRE was such that free discussion and full cooperation were difficult and independent verification of needs and responses often could not be undertaken. While the western donor group proved effective in transmitting concerns to government and the UN representatives also were persistent, it was not always possible to meet the requirements of all affected populations.
GDPRE institutions, particularly, the RRC, security administrations and the Workers Party of Ethiopia at the national, regional and local levels often espoused conflicting goals. These conflicts occasioned delays and, in a few cases, an inability to respond as needed.
4. Impact of Food Assistance
Emergency food distributions stopped most social disruption by February/March 1988. NGOs and the RRC attempted to open enough feeding centers as early as possible so that people would not be forced to walk long distances for food to maintain their families. In many places this was possible although it demanded incredible imagination and commitment on the part of implementing agency staff and entailed complex logistical solutions such as food airlifts into inaccessible areas. Camps, which had just begun to form in some areas, were disbanded since people could receive food nearer their homes. Because food was prepositioned by January 1988 in many areas and people had confidence that resident NGOS would bring in adequate food, population movements were limited.
Harder than initially reaching deep into the countryside to begin food distributions was providing a continuous steady stream of food to distribute. With cooperation between NGOs and flexibility on the part of the U.S.A.I.D. Mission and other donors, food was swapped back and forth and sent to areas where it was most needed. But flexibility was not enough to overcome the logistical problems of truck breakdowns, roads cut by rain, slow off-take at the ports, problems with the Djibouti railway etc. In some areas food distributions were postponed or reduced in size.
Nutritional data confirm the effectiveness of the 1987/88 food emergency program. Reliable and continuous nutritional surveillance information from Wello, N. Showa, Sidamo, Arsi and Hararghe during 1987/88 indicated that the level and flow of food aid during CY 1988 averted a widespread nutritional deterioration in many parts of Ethiopia. During the drought period in Wello, Showa, and North Sidamo nutritional data show that, in the main, nutritional status in the most drought affected areas remained good to satisfactory. In Hararghe where food shipments were disrupted and beneficiary numbers underestimated, nutritional states quickly deteriorated.
XX In Eritrea, Tigray, etc. there is little direct information on the extent drought and population displacement affected people's nutritional status. Gigantic efforts were made to get food to people on both sides of the line of conflict. While there are some eye-witness reports of peo-ile in poor physical condition in Tigray there was no massive outflow of refugees into Sudan which might have occurred had airlifts and other food distribution efforts not gotten food to people in need.
C. Conclusions
o Overall the 1987/88 Emergency Food Assistance Program achieved its goals.
In the most part, emergency food distribution kept people from migrating and averted starvation. Reaching the at-need population was not easy, however. The U.S. and others had to deal with a series of difficulties--a cargo ship of grain sinking, increasing inaccessibility of the north, the Government's decision to remove expatriate relief staff from the north and continuing railway/port problems. The major reasons for success included: (1) early alert by the RRC in August 1987; (2) early and quick response by the US and other donors; (3) on-the-ground, experienced NGOs; (4) in-country availability of food in the NGO pipeline and in the food security reserve; and (5) flexible and effective management by U.S.A.I.D..
0 Timing: A.I.D./Addis Ababa, A.I.D/Washington and the DCC took a risk in pledging food at the earliest signs of an impending disaster. But this risk proved to be well-worth it because it enabled emergency relief to begin before social stresses became unbearable or nutritional status declined. The US and other donors' response nipped a famine in the bud.
The uniformity of information on magnitude of potential need coming from the various early warning systems provided a persuasive justification for A.I.D./W to seek and receive approval from the DCC. Approval of a first tranche in September, two months before the "official" food needs assessments, enabled U.S. relief food to begin arriving as early as December. NGOs began to distribute food to the identified at-risk populations before they suffered serious hunger, were forced to dispose of assets or to migrate to other areas in search of food.
xxi o Management: The NGOs and the U.S.A.I.D. mission had learned well the lessons of the 1984-85 famine program.
NGOs in place had experience both in food distribution and in planning arrival, off-take and accountability. The U.S.A.T.D. Mission had confidence in early judgments of NGOS about program size and feasibility and used their proposals as the basis for the US emergency program. U.S.A.I.D. worked easily with the NGOs as programs were expanded and operational problems developed. The performance of the Mission was exceptional. They, with the support of A.I.D./W, took the risks necessary to assure early delivery and prepositioning, made the correct judgments on areas of focus and targeting, unscrambled problems as they arose, and were one of the prime movers in what turned out to be an emergency response model. Everyone the evaluation team met--UN, NGOs, government officials - commended U.S.A.I.D. for its initiative, pragmatism and performance.
o Impact: Emergency food aid prevented wide scale social disruption and for the most part maintained nutrition at satisfactory levels. Unfortunately military conflict often prevented emergency food aid from reaching people in the north.
Nevertheless, even after the April 1988 expulsion of expatriates from the north, the prepcsitioning of food and the utilization of Ethiopian NGOs on site allowed major distributions in the conflict area.
" The Future: Some areas of Ethiopia still face serious food shortage problems because of the intensifying conflict in the north or the fragility of the land areas beine cultivated.
The highland areas, which depend far more heavily on the belg crop than most other parts of the country, have already suffered from frosts and heavy rains which damaged their main 1988 crop. Even farmers who harvested a good crop in 1988 are still in a delicate position and unable to withstand another bad harvest in 1989. Ethiopian farmers will be faced with food insecurity until they have been able to recuperate over a three to four year period. Until then, another food emergency is possible at any time. o Food Security Reserve: The Ethiopian food security reserve played a very important role in ensuring that food was prepositioned early in many drought affected areas.
Although there was an early response from donors, emergency food aid for the most part arrived too late for needed prepositioning in January 1988. There is always a lag time for
xxii imported food aid and therefore a need for in country stocks. The grain reserve in 1988 provided an important buffer for a timely food relief response.
o 1988 Agricultural Recovery Program: The 1988 Agricultural Recovery Program supported by OFDA was necessary and critical for the planting of crops during the 1988 Meher for a majority of farm households receiving emergency food.
With the excellent administrative support of CRDA, the Program was clearly successful. Without these seeds and tools a large percentage of the target population would not have been able to plant their fields and would have continued to need emergency food in 1989.
o NGO role: They played an invaluable role in the success of the 1987/88 relief response.
Those NGOs with regular on-going PL480 food programs were able to expand most effectively and respond in a timely way to the drought situation. Their knowledge of the program areas (typically the most drought-affected), logistics systems in place, including trucks and warehouses, and working relationships with local RRC and farmer associations enabled them to assess problems early, quickly develop appropriate relief proposals and carry out relief programs efficiently. Food for work programs were used to effectively expand initial coverage of populations in need of assistance.
D. Recommendations
o The U.S. should act early, quickly and flexibly, as it did in Ethiopia in 1987, when there are indications of serious food shortages. Fast action stops famine.
o A.I.D. should maintain a staff in Ethiopia of sufficient size to efficiently manage the requirements of regular and emergency programs.
o The USG should support regular NGO programs targeted at drought preparedness and famine prevention during non-emergency years. Programs should be located in the most drought-prone areas, should be of sufficient size to warrant adequate infrastructure, and levels should be flexible and based on sound proposals and correctly targeted populations.
xxiii o Ways to expand NGO programs to encompass some responsibilities now resting with the in-country A.I.D. staff should be explored.
o A study of famine coping mechanisms should be undertaken so that their role can be more precisely understood in future emergencies.
o A.I.D. should urge EWSs and donors to give greater weight to information, whether quantitative or qualitative, gathered by the on-the-ground NGOs.
o A.I.D. should support the use of the new "RRC Nutritional Guidelines for Food Relief Rations" as well as the "Guidelines on Collection and Analysis of Nutrition Data" by PVOs distributing US emergency food aid in Ethiopia.
o The U.S.A.I.D. Mission should do needs assessments linked to the crop cycles of Ethiovia, i.e. July/August and February/March.
0 The need to include aTL agricultural recovery program as a component of a food emergency program should always be assessed.
o A.I.D. should continue to provide support grants along with food commitments, including a grant which would offer the alternative of trucking to Hararaghe rather than sole reliance on the Djibouti Rail Line. o Donors should work with the GPDRE to determine an appropriate and cost effective level for a food security reserve. o EEWS should consider replacing the existing go/no-go warning with one that parallels the US National Weather Service's weather advisories. o All the NGOs utilizing SCF/UK's nutritional monitoring system should be encouraged to help support this activity. If additional funding is not located this invaluable monitoring tool may be discontinued.
xxiv I. INTRODUCTION
A. Purpose, Scope and Methodology of the Evaluation
The principal purposes of the evaluation were to assess the timeliness, appropriateness and impact of the US emergency response to the 1987-88 Ethiopian Emergency; to analyze the importance of the in place US government and voluntary agency infrastructure in this response; to examine the results to date of drought preparedness and famine prevention programs; and, to make recommendations on future programming.
The scOpe of the evaluation (see Annex 1) illustrates the many issues dealt with during the course of the preparation, field work, and writing of the evaluation report.
Methodologically, the Team depended upon secondary source review, interviews and observations, both in Washington, D.C., and Ethiopia. The four-person team was composed of a team leader, a social anthropologist, a health/nutrition advisor and an early warning expert and was in Ethiopia from February 18 to March 11, 1989. In carrying out its work, the team described and analyzed the 1987-88 emergency situation in Ethiopia and A.I.D. and other donor responses to it; assessed the timeliness, appropriateness e.nd impact of A.I.D.'s response; and evaluated the effectiveness of drought preparedness and famine prevention efforts; and made recommendations for future use.
B. Overview of Ethiopia's Drought History
The 1987-88 Emergency was not Ethiopia's first. In fact, famine has been a recurrent feature of Ethiopian history. The first recorded occurrence dates from the 13th century. In the last one hundred years, there have been 10 famines, including the great famine of 1888-92 in which as many as one-third of Ethiopia's people died. In recent decades, famine has repeatedly struck northern Ethiopia: Wello and Tigray in 1953, Tigray in 1958, and Wello in 1966 and 1974. The famine of 1984-86 was exceptional among recent famines in that it encompassed most of the country. The causes of Ethiopian famines are rarely singular. More typically, famines have been caused by drought, but may also have encompassed erratic or unseasonable rainfall or hail that damaged crops, outbreaks of agricultural pests such as locusts, epidemics of human or animal diseases, regressive agricultural policies and war.
In 1984, the world came to know, through the nightly television news broadcasts, the tragic plight of famine victims in Ethiopia. By the end of 1984, with nearly 8 million people in Ethiopia considered at risk of
1 death due to starvation, appeals were made for 1.3 million metric tons of food, in addition to millions of dollars in other emergency relief supplies. The response was tremendous. Over 1.5 million metric tons of emergency food were distributed over two years, reaching an estimated 7.1 million people. Concurrently, nearly one billion dollars was provided by the international community in non-food relief aid, logistical support and recovery programs. More than 60 organizations directly administered relief assistance, receiving donations from 36 different governments and innumerable individuals and private organizations.
C. Emergencies in Ethiopia Impact Upon an Already "At-Risk" Population
The UN EPPG Famine Fact Sheet of August 1988 summarizes the plight of the majority of Ethiopians: "A combination of erratic weather, antiquated agricultural technology, human and animal pressure on the land, massive soil degradation, inadequate incentive for farmers, inefficient marketings, limited availability of inputs and a rapidly increasing population had led to a 22 percent decline in the per capita availability of grain in the last ten years. Any appreciable aberration in rainfall results in 10 percent to 15 percent of the rural population being placed immediately and directly at the risk of starvation."
The pervasive poverty (per capita GNP of $120 compared with $210 for low-income sub-Sahara Africa) means that very limited household resources have minimized personal defenses against drought and famine.
D. The 1988 Drought Emergency
The short-lived recovery of 1986 suffered a reversal. While Ethiopia's 1986 harvest was the best in four years, as early as January of 1987 analyses of food supply indicated a 800,000 ton deficit. The peasant sector crops were estimated to be normal or below normal. USAID's NGO partners began to signal early and increasing signs of distress between June and August of 1987, the crucial period for long season crop development, when the rains failed particularly in Eritrea, Tigray, Hararghe, Wello, Gonder, and Shewa regions, causing severe loss of crops. Effects of the drought in Tigray, Eritrea and Gonder were compounded by the rapidly increasing conflict in the north which forced numerous people to flee their villages and fields. In response to the UN's and NGO's compounding indications of disaster the Relief and Recovery Commission (RRC) issued a drought "alert" in August of 1987 and USAID and A.I.D./Washington in collaboration with their NGO partners began to mount a new emergency drought program.
E. The Donor Response
The US and other donors responded rapidly and efficiently, which resulted in implementation of a famine prevention, rather than a famine relief program. By April of 1988, the confirmed food pledges for Ethiopia totalled 1.07 million MT. As a result of this prompt donor response, led by the US, the relief agencies were able to borrow food
2 from the security reserve, preposition stock and begin early distribution, holding population movements to a minimum and maintaining stable nutrition levels in most areas. With a good harvest in the fall of 1988, a brief respite has again occurred in which to attempt some degree of recovery and return to normalcy of the rural populations.
3 II. EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS IN ETHIOPIA
A. Introduction
All observers talk about the numerous problems that plague Ethiopia even in times of good rains. Some of the problems are political (bureaucratic rivalries, internal wars), others are economic (loss of purchasing power), others are social (poor nutrition, health), still others are geographical. Ethiopia has a difficult geographical situation to cope with. It has great diversity, from the high rainfall areas in the west to the low rainfall areas in the north and the east. It has the highlands, the midlands, and the lowlands, each with different needs for agricultural production. Rainfall varies greatly over short distances as does soil fertility, and so agricultural production varies on the local scale.
There are clearly many internal problems that Ethiopia has to face even in the absence of politics and recurrent drought conditions. Some of these problems manifest themselves in the operation of Ethiopia's de facto national early warning system (EEWS) located in the Ethiopian Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC). This system has been in existence since 1977 and was formed in response to the 1972-74 drought-related famine situation. This system is fighting for survival in Ethiopia as THE national system, trying to maintain credibility among the NGOs as well as other Ethiopian government agencies and the donor community. It has generally received high marks for its strategic early warning report of August 1987 about food availability prospects for the year 1988.
B. The Political Context of Early Warning in Ethiopia
To understand better the workings of the Ethiopian Early Warning System it is important to understand the political context in which it operates. Early warnings about impending food shortages and the subsequent needs assessments that follow are politically charged statements. No country likes to announce to the world that it cannot feed its people or that a large number of its people are in need of food.
The Government of Ethiopia (GPDRE) is hierarchically organized with decisions being made at the highest levels of government in the capital of Addis. There has been conflict between RRC officials from the local level and the national level with officials of the Workers Party of Ethiopia at these levels. In such conflicts local party officials sometimes overrode RRC assessments of food deficit situations as well as its food needs assessments during 1987/88. An example of the politics of RRC early warning related outputs was the suppression of the January 1988 RRC Needs Assessment report. Another example of the de facto political context of early warning is the fact that long-range
5 (seasonal) forecasts of the National Meteorological Service Agency (NMSA) are sent to party and government officials but are not released to the public. The NMSA claims that seasonal forecasts are experimental and, therefore, are not supposed to be widely distributed. In addition, military conflicts in various parts of the country, especially in the northern provinces, make early warning and food needs assessments for those regions even more politically charged, since one can infer from such information (or lack thereof) whether the government in power is really in control of the population in these conflict zones.
C. A Brief Overview of the Ethiopian Early Warning System
The RRC was established in March 1974. Its creation "was less the result of recognizing the need to mitigate drought and famine but more an outcome of the adverse international publicity which arose over the 1973-74 famine. It, too, was the result in part of the then-government's insensitivity to the drought crisis and subsequent public unrest. To that extent, one might conclude that the RRC had initially been established as a face saving device". '
Eight government agencies are involved (in theory) in the EEWS, with the RRC designated as the coordinator of the informational inputs provided by these agencies. These agencies include the RRC, the Central Statistical Authority, (GSA) National Meteorological Service Agency (NMSA), the Ministry of Agriculture, (MOA) the Ethiopian Nutrition Institute (ENI), the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC), and the Ministry of State Farm Development (MSFD). The responsibility of each agency was defined at least on paper: RRC coordinates overall activities; CSA gathers crop and market information; NMSA meteorological data; ENI nutrition and consumption; MOA rangeland information and provision of manpower support in crop data collection; AMC market prices; MSFD state farm production and rainfall on these farms; and MOE the use of teachers to collect rainfall data.
The objective of the EEWS is to "predict the food situation in Ethiopia. ... Food supply monitoring is the key factor in the function of the Ethiopian EWS. ' ". This is done through the identification and monitoring of key indicators centered on agro-meteorological information, socioeconomic data and anthropometric factors. The major RRC indicators include rainfall, the availability of agricultural inputs (e.g., seed, oxen, fertilizers, etc.), disease outbreaks, availability of water and pastures, prices and supply in the marketplace, purchasing
'Hailu Solomon, "Appropriate institutional structures for disaster preparedness development," ONCCP Conference, 5-8 December 1988.
'Melaku Ayalew, "The Famine Early Warning System" ONCCP Conference, 5-8 December 1988.
6 power (the access that people have to food), types of goods and livestock brought to the market for sale (e.g., oxen, farm implements, etc.); household grain stocks; migration; and nutritional information.
With respect to nutritional information, some NGOs have begun to provide such information to the RRC. The RRC has come to view these NGOs as an important part of its early warning system's infrastructure and, in fact, relies on their inputs.
The EEWS has been viewed as a good system by the international community.' Despite the relatively favorable view of the RRC by outsiders, several problems inhibit its ability to function effectively. EEWS personnel have recently identified some problem areas that need to be addressed for improvement of the system. These are as follows:
o The quality of the data from the field is poor. The data is qualitative. Quantitative information is essential for credibility of the system's output.
o Information takes too long to reach the RRC. Market information can take as long as a month to reach the RRC. Rainfall stations are limited and not all stations report to the EEWS. There is a need to improve the rainfall network.
" Institutional collaboration is weakening. Agencies that were to provide information to the EEWS are doing so irregularly or not at all. The MOA has dissociated itself from the system, perceiving the system as RRC's as opposed to Ethiopia's.
o There is duplication of early warning efforts. "Various agencies are providing various kinds of early warning information. The Food Information System (FIS), a project under CSA, is collecting and reporting on food information. The Emergency Prevention and Preparedness Group (EPPG) of the UNDP has field reporting officers and produces warning information ... FAO sends crop assessment missions [from Rome] to collect food information. NGOs are also collecting information. ... The results have created confusion among the donors"
" The warning/response linkage is weak. In most cases "responsible government agencies have not considered the early warning information."
'It was objectively evaluated by consultants in the mid-1980s with funds from UNICEF (Holt, J. and P.. Cutler, 1984, Review of the Early Warning System of the RRC. UNICEF/RRC, March).
7 o The EEWS capabilities needs to be strengthened. The technical,conceptual and research capabilities of the EEWS should be further expanded and strengthened through manpower development on food crisis prediction, quick crisis assessment techniques, data analysis and technical report writing and on the processes leading to food crises. There is a strong need to set up and strengthen a research program in the EEWS which will eventually develop refined indicators which could be used for better prediction of food shortages.
o There is a lack of capacity at the Early Warning and Planning Services (EWPS) for interpreting much of the agro-meteorological information.
D. Other Ethiopian Early Warning Systems
Other governmental organizations besides the RRC also claim to operate early warning systems in the name of their specialized activities, although some of them might refer to these activities as monitoring rather than EWS.
1. The National Meteorological Service Agency
The NMSA issues a seasonal (long range) forecast to high-level decision makers (including the Politburo), to the RRC Commissioner and Early Warning Group, and to other specific users. These forecasts pay special attention to Belg and Kiremt (Meher) rainfall. This forecast is considered experimental and is not available to the public. Clearly, such forecasts have political importance, as they have in other countries as well. In preparing its long-range forecast, the NMSA uses all available data, including data on global atmospheric conditions (e.g., El Nino events that occur thousands of miles away in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Peru and Ecuador).
The Belg forecast is always issued in January and the Kiremt forecast is issued in April or May. Both are issued a month in advance of the onset of the respective seasons.
In addition to the seasonal forecast, the NMSA also prepares daily, weekly, 10-day and monthly reports on meteorological conditions with particular emphasis on rainfall. These reports are more widely distributed than are the seasonal ones. They issue a 4-day report to the public through the mass media (radio, TV, newspaper). NMSA also issues 10-day, monthly, and seasonal ag-met (agro-meteorological) bulletins, which are summarized in an annual report. All of these reports monitor recent conditions and present outlooks for the coming reporting period (e.g., 10-day, monthly, seasonal).
8 Ag-met bulletins include information on all meteorological elements and on general crop conditions for the reporting period. They are based on data primarily taken from about 50 indicative meteorological stations around the country. Reports from several of the 1000 or so meteorological stations are used for seasonal or monthly forecasts. The information from these 1000 stations is processed, analyzed and archived at the NMSA and is provided on request. The data from the 50 indicative stations are the most reliable and are readily disseminated to those who ask for it.
2. Food Information System (FIS)
The Food Information System is located in the Central Statistical Authority and works closely with five other gove.nment agencies: Ministry of Agriculture, Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, National Meteorological Service Agency, Agricultural Marketing Corporation and Ethiopian Nutrition Institute. The UN FAO provides technical assistance and UNDP funds the project, which requires periodic renewal.
The main responsibility of the project is to constantly review the food situation in the country, by monitoring factors like crop production, the livestock situation, food stocks, flow of imports/food aid, prices and the nutritional status of the population. The purpose of monitoring, according to phase 1 FIS project documents, is "to provide advance information on crop production, market situation and prices, and food availability in order to generally alert all the concerned government agencies about the forthcoming supply situation and possible deficits, as well as to indicate the required remedial action with sufficient time margin" '.
In practice FIS has relied very heavily on rainfall analysis for crop forecasting. In most areas rainfall is by far the most important single factor determining crop yield. Also, rainfall data tend to become available earlier than the other information used.
FIS's use of a water balance model provides "a more quantitative and useful approach" to early warning than essentially qualitative assessment, such as early or late onset of rains and comparison of actual rainfall with normal values.
While the EEWS at present normally concentrates on expected production shortfalls and food relief requirements, FIS attempts to take a wider view of the whole food situation, including deficits and
4 Mitik Beyene, "Information system for planning and evaluation of national disaster prevention and preparedness", paper presented at the ONCCP Conference on Disaster Preparedness, Addis Ababa, 5-8 December, 1988, p. 6 .
9 surpluses, which often occur simultaneously in different parts of the country. Marketing factors, stocks, prices and the operations of the Agricultural Marketing Corporation, as well as the Food Security Reserve are also studied. According to the general manager of the Central Statistical Authority, the FIS project was envisioned to improve on the weaknesses of the EEWS, the latter designed specifically for the RRC's demand oriented approach that relied upon a fair degree of qualitative information. '
The centerpiece of the FIS assessments of the overall food situation is the crop forecast for both Meher and Belg seasons, which uses and compares a number of mostly qualitative information such as:
" Information from the Central Statistical Authority crop forecast survey.
" Field reports on crop conditions by Ministry of Agriculture.
" A study of rainfall distribution, compared to crop water requirements.
o Prices and marketing trends.
o Availability of fertilizers and other inputs.
" Results of Agricultural Marketing Corporation's crop procurement, compared to previous years.
o Vegetation index based on NOAA satellite images.
If there is any contradiction between the outputs of the different methods, FIS staff immediately investigates the situation.
3. Ministry of Agriculture (MOA)
In January of a given year the MOA begins to think about the new year's Belg production. In March, MOA begins to monitor and by the end of the month it can determine what percentage of their target (i.e., hectares to be planted) was realized. In May the MOA begins to prepare for the Meher season. In July it can tell about production for this season based on meteorological and agronomic observations. The MOA
5 Mitik Beyene, "Information system for planning and evaluation of national disaster prevention and preparedness", paper presented at the ONCCP Conference on Disaster Preparedness, Addis Ababa, 5-8 December, 1988, p.6 .
10 primarily monitors crop conditions. It sets targets, not projections. MOA reports are primarily issued in Amharic and the Ministry relies on the Ethiopian calendar. This makes access to and comparability of information somewhat difficult.
The MOA's Agriculture Development Department (ADD) regular*'y updates weekly reports on crop conditions, both in the Meher (main) and Belg seasons. These reports come from MOA zonal offices by telephone. Telephone reports begin with Development Centers (the local level administrative unit) in the case of surplus producing wordeas, and compilation is done at Awraja or regional administrative level. For non-surplus producing woredas collection of information starts at the woreda level only. Based on woreda information, reporting on the crop condition for the reference week is done by the awraja office. The awraja-level information is compiled at the zonal office and passed in time by telephone to the ADD in Addis Ababa. Based on these reports ADD prepares weekly reports on the crop condition in different parts of the country with synopses at the zonal level.
The weekly report includes the following:
o Area ploughed weekly during the land preparation period;
o Main crops grown at the woreda level;
o Weekly planted/sown area by crop type; and
o Rainfall. If data on rainfall amount are available from MOA or NMSA or any other sources (e.g., state farms), the amount of rainfall is reported in mm, otherwise the intensity of rainfall is reported in relative terms (i.e., high, medium, low, or nil). When available, the number of rainy days is also reported. If there is no rain during the period under reference, the weather condition is generally reported as sunny or cloudy, as the case may be.
" Stages of development of crops. This is reported by specifying whether the crop is mostly at early vegetative, late vegetative, flowering, grain filling, ripening, physiological maturity stage, ready for harvest, harvest on-going or already harvested.
o Problems related to r-ainfall condition. Shortage of rainfall or drought and total area affected by the condition is reported in this category. Excess rainfall and the problems it has created (e.g., delay in sowing, lodging, shattering, etc.) are also effectively reported in this category.
II o Problems related to pest/disease/week/hail/wind. Any incidence of such kind is reported with detailed specification on area affected, damage or loss incurred, measures taken to alleviate the cause, etc. If a sudden outbreak occurs, reporting is done immediately without waiting for the scheduled time for weekly reporting.
o Availability/shortage of main inputs.
o Information on harvesting time. This covers information about whether the crops are harvested early, on time, or late. If harvesting is not at the normal time, mention is made of the reason for it being so.
These weekly reports on crop conditions are followed by monthly crop reporting by mailed reports.
4. Non-Governmental organizations and early warning systems
Virtually all NGOs have their own formal or informal version of an early warning system. NGOs collect specialized information relating to their mission, often on nutrition, but they also collect (usually in a less systematic way) qualitative information about rainfall, crop conditions, market prices for specific commodities, population movements, health problems, the sale of assets, and the consumption of what are referred to as famine foods, foods of last resort.
For example, SAVE-UK maintains a nutritional surveillance program in Wello. In its October 1988 report from Wello SAVE-UX described how it assesses the nutritional status in three PAs (officially called peasant associations but SAVE-UK refers to them as farmers associations); it also reported that "At the same time information is collected through discussion with local people and through direct observation on crop condition, weather patterns, mortality, morbidity and migration. The market price of grains and livestock are monitored on a weekly or fortnightly basis from the major market(s) of each woreda."
The NGOs are considered by the RRC to be essential sources of information about conditions in their locales. In a presentation to the RRC/CRDA Follow-Up Workshop on Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Strategy (Feb. 21-22, 1988), Desta and Fulas concluded that "NGOs could be one of the best sources for general as well as specific information in their impact areas." They also acknowledged that SAVE-UK's nutritional surveillance programs were being used by the RRC.
SAVE-UK is not the only NGO involved in early warning activities. The Christian Relief and Development Agency (CRDA), whose major aim is
12 to coordinate more than sixty churches and NGOs engaged in relief, rehabilitation and development programs in Ethiopia, issues monthly meeting reports in which regional situation reports are provided by NGOs about conditions in the areas in which they operate. This is, in essence, output from an informal early warning system. Reports and memos from various NGOs often serve as early warning reports.
The NGOs worked well together during the 1988 emergency. They did a better job of identifying food shortages and needs than they had done in the past. CRDA organized workshops to focus on specialized indicators (such as nutritional status) and the participants presented their use and views on specific indicators; discrepancies and differences were openly discussed. The NGOs came to similar conclusion about the food situation in 1987, that is, that there would be a large food deficit in 1988.
5. UN Emergency Prevention and Preparedness Group (EPPG)
The UN's EPPG also produces reports of field surveys of people who could be referred to as evaluators. There were four evaluators in 1988, two of whom were supported by USAID. Their brief reports explicitly identify as early warning indicators prices in the market place for grains and livestock, agricultural activities (crop conditions), and nutritional/health information. They draw conclusions such as "the visual impressions from the field trip give no cause for alarm" (13-17 October 1988). Interestingly, this report identified charcoal as an indicator of change; "In the area around Efesson, more people than normal are offering charcoal for sale, indicating that more people than usual are in need of cash."
This comment on charcoal in the marketplace is anecdotal information. There is really no way as yet set up in the EEWS or in any other early warning system to calibrate for use such anecdotal information. Yet, such information can be useful by providing one of the earliest warning indicators, flagging potential problems or reinforcing the warnings provided in monitoring other standard indicators for assessing food production problems.6
6 This point was raised at the NMSA/RRC/UNDP meeting on Drought Early Warning (December 1988), when the Director of the NMSA suggested that it was very difficult in an operational sense to incorporate "anecdotal" information into a formal EWS.
13 E. Other Early Warning Systems
Neither FEWS (A.I.D.'s Famine Early Warning System) nor GIEWS (FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System) appears to have been used by AID/Addis Ababa except to confirm reports of Ethiopian EWSs. On the other hand, some Washington officials expressed the view that FEWS played an important role in convincing AID/W, the DCC (Development Coordination Committee), the media and Congress that there was a growing food emergency in Ethiopia in mid-1987 and that a rapid response was necessary and that with FEWS reports confirming field reports from the Addis Ababa Mission and the RRC, the DCC gave immediate approval for the programming of the first tranches of emergency food, i.e. FEWS provided a second opinion on the Mission's recommendation. The team has not been able to confirm this. In fact, several sources including the producer of FEWS and representatives of the groups that supply information for FEWS, stated this was not the case. We suggest that a more detailed examination of the role of FEWS in 1988 early warning would be beneficial.
F. What Actually Happened with EEWS in 1987 and the 1988 Emergency
The 1988 situation has been referred to as a "disaster" and as an "emergency". These are not the same nor do they connote the same impacts on society. Emergency is much more appropriate as a designation of the situation in 1988. An emergency can be viewed as an impending disaster if no action is taken. An emergency connotes a process; it suggests that actions taken can prevent disaster. To have looked at the 1988 forecast and to have foreseen an emergency was appropriate, given the indicators that were available at that time. To call it a disaster would have been inappropriate. Disaster was the end state that was to be avoided. To ask the question "was there a disaster in 1988 and how well did we deal with it?" is misleading and its answer may yield little of value.
1. The Meteorological setting for the 1987-88 Emergency'
a. Seasonal classifications in Ethiopia
With regard to rainfall, there are three meteorologically defined seasons in different parts of Ethiopia: Bega, Belg, and Kiremt [Meher), as shown in Figure 1.
7Much of this information is taken from the NMSA's seasonal forecasts for 1987 and 1988 and from Tesfaye Haile, "A Case Study of Seasonal Forecast in Ethiopia," in Proceedings of the WMO Regional Association 1 (Africa) Seminar on Modern Weather Forecasting, 30 November - 4 December 1987 (Geneva, Switzerland).
14 Legend:
M. •A - Three Seasons
N 6 B - Monomodal
S- "C - Bimodal
.u. D - Diffused Pattern
• ',S. GON.
. -,. coi3 N0 o / . - -. , . .
). . .
-T
L.AD I V 0 goof 0 NGOD D /0 e\
- 0
ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
Figure 1: Generalized Rainfall Regimes
Source: Haile, Tesfaye. A Case Study of Seasonal Forecast in Ethiopia, 1987.
15 Bega is the dry season which generally occurs between October and January. The Belg season normally occurs from mid-February to mid-May and the Kiremt season (the main rainy season) usually takes place from June to September. Ethiopia's rainfall regime is determined by a variety of atmospheric mechanisms which create three basic types of regional rainfall regimes: one with a wet and a dry season (called monomodal), another with a double rainfall maximum during the year (called bimodal rainfall), and a third basically dry season. This categorization may be generally valid but in any given year and in any given location there can be deviations from these general patterns without major adverse impacts on agricultural production. Figure 2 identifies the rainfall distribution of various cities and towns depicting the diversity of Ethiopia's rainfall regimes.
With regard to early warning for the 1987-88 meteorological and, food production situation, it is important to focus on the NMSA's seasonal forecasts for this period. It's initial step was to analyze the monthly and seasonal rainfall deviation for several years of record so as to identify similar analogous years. In its analysis, the NMSA attempted to understand the influence of El Nino events on weakening and displacing the rain-producing mechanisms and on the subsequent rainfall deficiency in Ethiopia. Once similar years were identified, NMSA could choose the appropriate weather charts for those years and compare and contrast the rain-producing components against the charts for 1987, in order to identify possible rainfall deficiencies in Ethiopia.
Thus the NMSA attempted to assess the rain-producing mechanisms of both the Belg and the Kiremt and to formulate the seasonal forecasts for the 1987/88 period accordingly.
b. Seasonal forecast of Belg 1987
In January 1987 the NMSA issued its seasonal forecast for the 1987 Belg season. To formulate and issue this forecast, the surface and upper level pressure charts of December 1986 and January 1987 were compared with previous years' charts, in particular with those years in which Ethiopia had good Belg rains and lean Belg rains. Satellite imagery, if available, was also considered for those years. In general, the methodology is the same as used for preparing the 1987 Kiremt forecast, discussed in the next section. Based on the trends of these synoptic features, it was anticipated that the Belg rains of 1987 would be near normal.
c. Seasonal forecast of Kiremt 1987
In April/May 1987 the NMSA embarked on producing a seasonal forecast for the Kiremt (Meher) season. In the case of the 1987 Kiremt forecast the NMSA compared and contrasted the rain-producing
16 ASMARA 200 ADDIS ABABA 3 8 9 i 200 100
300 GONDAR 3 8OU9OL12 COMBOLCHA 200 300 100 200 T T-rT-r--r-"00 - 3 6 9 12 'S 400 ET ,.., - 3 9 12 300 ' - 200: DIRE DAWA 100 . 100
312 -- . 3 6 9 12
3 J
, I • 300I JIMA
200: 100: GODE ...... 3'912 \100 t 39 6 9 12
200 NEGELE 200. GOBA
100: 100:
3 8 9 12 3 6 9 12
ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
Figure 2: Histograms of the Mean Monthly Rainfall (mm) of Selected Stations
Source: Wodajo, Tsegaye. Agrometeorological Activities in Ethiopia. Columbia, Missouri: NOAA/CEAS, September 1984
17 components of 1976 and 1983 (El Nino years) and 1986 (a normal year) against the then current situation and year-to-date trend of 1987. Forecasters also compared July and August of 1983 and 1984 (abnormal years) and 1986 (a normal year) in order to develop a basis for the seasonal forecast. Because the 1987 global atmospheric circulation was affected by a moderate and persistent El Nino event, the NMSA's regional synoptic features assessment also took into consideration El Nino's possible influences.
Based on the above assessment, NMSA predicted that the normal amount and distribution of Ethiopian rainfall would be altered, and hence deficient rainfall could be expected, particularly over the northern, northwestern, northeastern and the eastern parts of the country. In retrospect, the rainfall deficiency during Kiremt 1987 proved to have been much more extensive than the NMSA had anticipated, especially in the eastern sector and the adjacent Rift Valley regions during June and July.
Toward the end of July 1987, the NMSA attempted to assess the meteorological situation for the rest of the season and to produce a forecast. In late July 1987 some of the rain-producing systems were strengthened while some of the blocking influences on Ethiopia's rain-producing processes were weakened. In light of these changes in the meteorological situation, the NMSA anticipated that the amount and distribution of rainfall for August 1987 would improve but would still remain below normal. NMSA was uncertain whether cessation of the Kiremt rains would be early, late or normal.
Although rainfall in the eastern highlands still rema'.ned below normal, rainfall particularly in northern Ethiopia had a better geographical distribution in August 1987. In the latter part of August 1987, there were some signs that the Kiremt would cease at least ten days earlier than normal in some parts of the country. Thus, the NMSA predicted early cessation of the rains in Tigray, Gonder, Wello and Shewa, and the highlands of Harrar. In retrospect, isolated rains over the above regions were encountered beyond the anticipated forecast period, and meteorological conditions in the western parts of Tigray, Gonder and Shewa remained near normal conditions. With hindsight, the extent and severity of the drought condition in Kiremt 1987 proved to be even worse than the NMSA had anticipated.
2. Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, 1987-8R
The RRC issues monthly early warning system reports. Their June 1987 report was expanded to include the first half of July conditions and was issued in July, "because of the unfavorable climatic condition observed in several parts of the country in July and our
18 intention to inform concerned agencies about the situation as early as possible." While it mentions that "the situation looks grave," no warning was raised for 1988 food prospects. This report was not a warning but, as such, an advisory. In late July, the NMSA had already alerted the government to impending unfavorable rainfall conditions leading to drought in the coming months. However, the government was not prepared to issue an early warning.
The next notable event occurred following a week-long trip by the WFP to Eritrea and Tigray to investigate reports of pioloiged dry conditions and locust damage. The Director of the World Food Program's Logistical Office returned from this trip and telexed the WFP in Rome on Monday, August 3, 1987, to inform it that the rains had virtually stopped in July 1987 and hot dry conditions prevailed, heightening the risk of major regional crop failure. The telex also reported that food stocks in Asmara were exceptionally low (contrary to popular belief) and projected that, apart from consideration cf food relief needs in the rest of the country, the northern areas would require a major relief operation. The telex commented on conditions in the rest of the country, noting that "it is quite clear at this stage that harvest will at best be reduced and prospect must be faced that major relief operation will be required in 1988 and requirement could match 1985-86 emergency. Effects could be even more severe as farmers have not had a chance to fully recover or build up reserves following the last drought."
On Wednesday of the same week of the telex, news of these shortages were broadcast by the BBC and the VOA based on a WFP news release. Several high ranking Ethiopian government officials were extremely disturbed by this news release and chastised the WFP Logistical Director. However, he, among others, believe that this unplanned WFP/Rome dissemination of impending emergency conditions for 1987-88 prompted the Ethiopian government to "go public" on the deteriorating food situation before the upcoming 13th Anniversary Celebration of the Revolution rather than after it. The Ethiopian government, after deliberations at the Politburo level, convened a donors meeting on August 14th at which the RRC released a special early warning report entitled "1987 Meher (Main) Crop Season Production Prospect and its Probable Effect on Food Supply." This was the first official recognition of the developing emergency for 1988.
There was considerable controversy between the RRC and other Ethiopian ministries about whether to release the August 1987 RRC early warning report. A celebration of the 13th anniversary of the 1974 revolution was planned for September llth. The timing of the release of the RRC report, as well as the report's contents, were debated in the Politburo. It has been suggested that contributions to the grain reserves were made by the AMC in mid-August in order to mitigate the
19 potential adverse effects of deficient Meher rains and subsequent crop losses. It has also been suggested that the MOA, which already opposed the RRC in general as an agency seeking to maintain its existence by finding famines and food shortages, also opposed the RRC's assessment because the MOA and the Politburo tended to think in terms of surpluses, following the good 1987 Belg harvest. It has been suggested that the Ethiopian government had planned to sell off some of the "surplus" from the Belg harvest in July, but was dissuaded from doing so based on the NMSA forecast for the remainder of the Kiremt season.
This August RRC report was based on "unfavorable climatic conditions observed in several parts of the country during the current Meher season." The report does not refer to the magnitude of the developing food shortage but makes the strategic point that there is an emerging severe food problem at the national level. It reported that "it is difficult at this stage to speak with certainty about the details of the levels of production at the end of the season. One thing however, has, become certain. There will be a significant shortfall in production, followed by food shortages in 1988, the magnitude of which will be made known in due course." The RRC reports acknowledge explicitly what is implied in its early warnings, that is, that they were probabilistic statements, "due to the complex agro-climatic condition of the country, and the possible shifts in either direction of rain in the remaining period of the season." Updates were to follow on a monthly basis.
A September 5th letter issued by the RRC Chief Commissioner stated that 950,000 MT of food assistance would be required by the end of December for the year 1988, due to the failure of the Meher harvests. The UNDP Resident Representative concurred with this request. In September a meeting of donors was convened by the RRC to discuss the entire food supply situation and food needs for 1988.
The RRC's Special Early Warning Report was issued "to sensitize concerned agencies about the likelihood of food shortages in several parts of the country as a result of a failure of the Meher rains in June and July 1987. " A new assessment entitled "1988 Food Supply Prospects" was issued in November by the RRC covering up to the third week in October. On 5 September 1987, the RRC quantified the crop shortfall at 950,000 MT, and on 13 November 1987 this figure was updated to 1.046 million MT." '
In addition to its overall assessment of the food situation, the RRC report of November provides assessments of food supply situations by administrative region. Noted are crop conditions, livestock conditions and market conditions, including charts of the marketplace prices of
'UN EPPG, January 1989, Report on Ethiopian Relief Operations.
20 major regional grains. Each section concludes with a projection of food supply conditions at the regional level for 1988, including an estimate of the region's affected population and its food needs.
The November report also noted that a more refined needs assessment report would appear in January 1988 as the information on the harvests and at-risk populations improved. Such a report was prepared by the EEWS in January 1988 but for some yet-unidentified reason was suppressed by the Commissioner or authorities above him. The report was never released and presently it is still unavailable.
3. Other early warnings
On 9 December 1987 FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS)/WFP Disaster Relief Service issued a telex (ESC/219377) referring to "deteriorating food situation in Ethiopia, results of FAO Crop Assessment Mission and additional information received since our special joint reports of 6 August, 18 September and 4 November 1987." The telex noted that the FAO Crop Assessment Mission had just returned from Ethiopia and "confirmed earlier warnings of severe crop failure and impending famine in Ethiopia." It was in this telex that FAO estimated cereal food aid requirements for 1988 at 1.3 million MT, which it noted was higher than the food aid received during the 1984-85 famine.
There has been some controversy over the differences in food need assessments of the FAO, USAID, and the RRC. Nevertheless, A.I.D considered that all the assessments were within range of one another and that since all estimated the need in 1987/88 to be greater than the total delivered in 1984/85, a rapid response was necessary.
It appears that all organizations were paying close attention to rainfall conditions in the 1987 Meher season as well as in the preceding 1987 Belg season. International agencies and diplomatic missions were also paying close attention to emergency food problems in 1987 and to the increasing probability of food shortages in 1988. Even given the average good Belg, it was clear by June 1987 that there had been failures in some areas. The precarious position was soon worsened by the failure of the rains in June and July. CRDA mid-1987 reports show NGOs were already concerned about the deteriorating food situations in their areas of operations. '
'The representative of AICF (Action Internationale Contre la Faim) raised a general question at the August 3 1987 CRDA meeting (#50) about what agencies should do while the information from the RRC National Monitoring Committee was awaited and yet real food shortages were being recognized in given areas. The meeting chairman responded by noting that "Launching relief operations without such data in any area not yet designated by the RRC as an emergency area was unwise and inadvisable."
21 On 21 September 1987 FIS issued a report which brought together and analyzed information provided by the participating agencies (MOA, RRC, NMSA, AMC and ENI): crop and weather conditions, agricultural statistics of the previous crop year, prices, AMC procurement and stocks, results of nutritional surveillance and NOAA satellite imagery. The main focus of the report was on the current threat of serious food shortages as a result of a "dry spell" in June and July 1987.
FIS considered its report to be a "A first attempt ... to assess at least the order of magnitude of potential production shortfalls," while recognizing that "it [was] too early for such an assessment and information on regions and awrajas [was] incomplete ... FIS focused on identifying needs at the regional and awraja levels and not on serving as an early warning system."
G. Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Conclusions
" The Ethiopian Early Warning System and other EWSs in Ethiopia operate in a political context in which statements about impending food shortages and number of people at-risk are politically charged. This makes the technical excellence of the EEWS and verification of one EWS' conclusions by another EWS very important.
o In retrospect the EEWS August 1987 report proved to have been reliable and fairly accurate. It was timely, had appropriate caveats, and was corroborated by most if not all other existing EWSs operating in Ethiopia in mid-1987. There was considerable controversy over the issuance of this report at this time. The RRC had to defend this report following its release. The MOA accused the RRC of perpetuating the RRC's existence by releasing a famine warning when there was no evidence of a problem.
o The "success" of the EEWS in 1987/88 was due not only to its own early warning but to the support its prediction received from other EWSs at work in Ethiopia at the time.
" It seems that with the EEWS, as with other formal and informal EEWSs in Ethiopia, there exists a go/no-go warning system; that is, either there are famine-like conditions and assistance is required or there is no
famine situation and no emergency assistance is required. This is too coarse with respect to the types of warnings that might be issued related to severe food shortages.
22 o There is great pressure exerted by the Ethiopian government to show that no famine situation exists in the country. As a result of such pressure, there could develop a tendency to delay responding to early signs of food production problems in the hope that they will disappear. This could constrain the ability of the EEWS, NGOs and the donor community to respond swiftly and appropriately to signs of deteriorating food production at the national, regional and local levels. o If the in-country food reserves are low, the need for an effective and efficient early warning system is crucial for averting the emergence of famine-like conditions. If, however, these reserves are relatively high, there will be less need for the early warning system to be efficient at producing the earliest possible warning. In other words, the need for a top-notch early warning system may decrease to some extent as food reserves increase.
0 The 1988 emergency was correctly identified at a strategic level by the Ethiopian Early Warning System. The official early warning issued in mid-August 1987, amplified by the unofficial warnings of other organizations such as the seasonal forecast of the NMSA, were the catalysts to subsequent official actions of the GDPRE, the UN system, the donor community, and the NGOs. The numerous formal and informal EWSs existing in the country reinforced the EEWS' assessment of the 1988 food situation thereby giving the EEWS the credibility that it required. The EEWS strategic assessment in August 1987 of the food problems for 1988 clearly noted that it was too early to determine the magnitude and exact locations of the impacts on a regional and local level. A few months later tactical early warnings were issued by region with explanations of food assessment needs as they were available at that time. o The high level of attention paid by donors and others to the emergenry food problems, many agree, was due to the fact that they did not want to see a repeat of Ethiopia's 1984-85 famine situation. The donors had suffered the embarrassment of belatedly responding to a reliable early warning from the RRC and so belatedly responding to a famine situation of major proportions. Irene Lacey of the
World Food Program in Ethiopia suggested, "nobody was taking any chances with the 1987-88 assessment." Some believe that the response to the early signs of a problem erred too far on the side of safety, but RRC felt that the rapid generous response took considerable pressure off
23 the RRC and others to determine the more precise definition of emerging food needs.
o In 1987 governments took actions swiftly to show that they cared about human life and to demonstrate their commitment in order to erase the remaining stigma of inaction early in the 1984-85 situation but they took action because of the amplified early warnings of the several EWSs operating in Ethiopia. The EEWS was only one factor which prompted the donor community to respond. It did not have enough confidence in the EEWS alone. Since EWSs make predictions and needs to establish a track-record of successful predictions before its' reliability can be assessed we cannot rush to judge in retrospect the success or failure of a particular early warning made at a particular time. The "success" of 1987/88 should not be misinterpreted as meaning that the EEWS has proven that it has achieved a level of reliability with regard to forecasting food production problems in the future and that the EEWS should be used from now on as the sole EWS for Ethiopia.
o There are several early warning systems in operation in Ethiopia collecting information which often overlaps but each giving differing weight to different indicators. Each organization (the NGOs, the international organizations, donor missions, Ethiopian government agencies and the like) seems to believe that it must collect its own information if only to better calibrate the early warning information of others. Jan Jansonius (FIS) recently suggested that while duplication of data collection should be avoided, the utility of several monitoring systems which sometimes overlap is in an amplification of the early warning; amplification can reinforce the credibility of the early warnings of the EEWS. Such amplification was crucial in 1987/88 in convincing Washington that there was a food emergency in Ethiopia; all EWSs at work in Ethiopia were unanimous in indicating a problem and, just as important, their estimates of the magnitude of the problem were all in the same range. o NGOs are viewed by the RRC as an important adjunct part of the food relief infrastructure. The RRC considers NGOs essential sources of information about conditions in their locales. They provide timely information on local conditions and they serve as conduits to get food relief distributed in the areas in which they operate.
24 2. Recommendations
o EEWS should consider replacing the existing go/no-go warning with one that parallels the US National Weather Service's weather advisories. The US National Weather Service, for example, issues three major kinds of warnings: advisories, watches, warnings. An advisory is issued to alert a community that a certain weather-related event may happen; it is not a certainty but there is possibility of occurrence. A watch is issued when the forecasters believe that the weather-related event is most likely to take place; however, there is still a chance that the event might not happen. A watch has a higher probability of occurrence than an advisory. A warning is issued when the event has begun to take place somewhere in the area (city, county, state or nation). This particular gradation advisories would be an improvement over the go/no go advisory that is currently used.
o It would not be particularly useful to expend energies trying to elect one EWS as THE EWS within Ethiopia (or even for use internationally). Instead the importance of having many different systems, weighing various indicators differently, concur in indicating a problem should be recognized. That concurrence should amplify the importance of the problem being predicted.
0 Hindcasting should be undertaken for EWS outputs so that the EWS can be refined in the future. Long-range weather forecasts (seasonal) are reviewed in order to determine the reasons why their estimates and projections were off the mark. The same could be done for the food assessments (needs) in order to improve the accuracy of future needs assessments.
o Separate the food needs of population in a conflict zone from those of people in a non-conflict zone. While drought definitely affects the food situation in both areas, the situation in the conflict zone will prove to be much worse. The estimates of needs in such areas is much more difficult to make and verify and the at-risk populations much more difficult to reach. In addition, different logistical tactics and so forth are required to deliver food supplies within the conflict zone. Even if there should not be two formal early warning systems, one for the northern provinces and one for the rest of the country, it is important to note that it becomes more difficult to publicly determine the needs in the north due to politics.
25 o The NGO's capacities to gather information on food security issues for use in early warning, baseline data, and monitoring should be strengthened. This information should be used for famine preparedness and food emergency response.
26 III. FOOD NEED ASSESSMENTS
A. Introduction
Closely tied to the EWS is the food need assessment methodology which has been developed to estimate country food availability and food deficits. Experience over the years has led the US to systematically verify country food balances rather than to rely solely on estimates done by countries seeking food assistance or even those generated by the FAO. Failure to verify has led in the past to over-or under-provision of food aid.
There is considerable doubt about the quality of the statistical data base used in Ethiopia, as is the case in many other African countries. There is presently no alternative, however, to using available CSA and MOA data, if a food balance estimate is to be made. USAID believes a determination of the food balance is the only way to assess external food aid needs for a country. This approach also differentiates between the structural and emergency components of any food deficit calculated, that is, that portion of a deficit which is exceptional, rather than "normal." Emergency deficits are caused by conditions outside man's control--drought, flood, pests, conflict etc. The concept of a structural, as compared to an emergency deficit, may be troublesome, as a large recurring deficit is sure to have major impacts on nutritional levels, particularly of the marginal or at risk populations. However, reasons for such structural deficits often include counter-productive pricing, marketing, taxing, agricultural investment policies, as well as increasing population pressures on the available land base. Meeting these structural deficits by food aid perpetuates or facilitates such policies. The reverse side of the structural deficit is that relief workers believe that even in a normal year some 2 million people in Ethiopia are endangered by severe malnutrition. Moreover, lack of access, economic deprivation and isolated crop failures will always create individual relief needs for assistance from NGOs. The US contributions to these relief efforts must be pledged on an individual basis.
B. Differing Mechanisms Used in Defining Needs
Using some of the indicators discussed in the preceding early warning section, the RRC and NGOs attempt to estimate populations in need of food assistance in subnational geographical areas. They .. nild up from the number of people in need to the amount of food require'. to meet their caloric shortfalls. The NGOs do this for specific localities in which they operate, while the RRC is responsible for a countrywide estimate, for which they use information received from NGOs, farmer
27 associations and local administrators, among other sources. They estimate food needs by multiplying the number of people identified as at risk by 500 grams/day.
Other organizations such as the Central Statistics Authority (CSA) and FAO produce a crop production estimate, which is usually a shortfall. The benchmark in these assessments is aggregate food production.
USAID calculates the food deficit in yet another way, by constructing a national food balance sheet, which compares aggregate consumption requirements to aggregate food availability. However, USAID in 1987 also relied heavily on early warning information of the NGOs and its own field observations to alert Washington to early area shortfalls and to identify populations that needed targeted assistance.
Determination of the magnitude of emergency food aid requires a combination of all these approaches. Crop production shortfall estimates are critical to a national food balance sheet. However, crop production estimates ignore other important sources of food: commercial imports, milk production, food stocks, etc., and do not differentiate between structural and emergency deficits. The national balance approach also makes some implicit assumptions, such as flow of surplus to deficit areas, and does not disaggregate deficits. This is a particular problem in a country like Ethiopia where regional trade is limited, if not obstructed. The third approach, enumeration or "ground up" estimates of population in need, ignores aggregate supply and because it is subjective and sensitive to pressure and bias from various groups, such as the RRC, the MOA, regional administrators, etc., may grossly overstate or understate the local needs. All three systems do not attempt to address the additional need of chronically undernourished groups which are becoming more and more prevalent in Ethiopia. Per capita consumption has been steadily declining for the past ten years and is now at a level (1,700 calories) considered seriously deficient, if not inadequate for human survival. Given the imprecise data and differing methodologies, needs assessments sometimes may vary widely.
C. Timing of Needs Assessments
Estimators of food needs in Ethiopia have in the past commonly waited for the main (Meher) rain harvest in order to forecast total crop production and import needs for the following calendar year. This means official estimates, including those of the RRC, are issued in November/December. As mentioned, RRC issued an alert in August of 1987, but did not release an official assessment or appeal until November. By the time such estimates are disseminated, analyzed and acted upon, a pipeline gap in food deliveries is almost assured. Experience in Ethiopia shows that the time between food pledging and delivery to beneficiaries takes from five to seven months. Therefore, while
28 continuing to identify and quantify country food import needs, both structural and emergency, donors must use early warning mechanisms as their first indicators of need if they wish to avoid the "gap/glut" phenomenon that occurs in any food aid delivery pipelines that wait for official after-harvest assessments. A.I.D. used the early warning alert and its NGO partners' recommendations in 1987 and took the risk of ordering and shipping food before the official assessments were done. It worked. USAID also intends to begin doing its food balance calculations more frequently to increase their effectiveness as early warning tools. Although this will mean that many more factors will be predictive rather than reported, it will increase the role of food need assessments in early warning analyses.
D. What the Food Needs Assessments for 1988 Indicated
While the three assessments for 1988 disagreed on total food needs (see USAID, Table 1; FAO, Table 2; and RRC, Table 3), essentially there was a consensus that in 1988 Ethiopia again faced the possibility of a serious food shortage situation which could lead to severe malnutrition, if not famine, unless addressed. Over 5 million people were targeted as at serious risk if not assisted and it was estimated that from 850,000 to 1,000,000 tons of food would be needed to merely keep this at risk population at Ethiopia's subnormal consumption levels. Remembering the famine specter of 1984/85, the donors, led by the US, responded.
E. The Importance of Logistical Capacity, Infrastructure and Political Conditions in Calculating Need Assessments
The 1988 needs assessments did not explicitly factor in elements such as delivery infrastructure and capability or political conditions constraining delivery. This was considered to be the responsibility of the food donors and distributors. There was a presumption that the RRC beneficiary figures for Eritrea and Tigray, for example, were understated because of lack of access, informational flow and the unknown magnitude of the restricted and disrupted plantings and harvests. But the under-stated figure, if raised, would assuredly have strained the distribution capacity of the area, which did not argue for increasing the figures.
During the course of the emergency operation major logistical problems and civil conflict often severely hampered the delivery and distribution network. Perhaps the needs assessments could have factored in some percent of these constraints, but primary responsibility for analysis of the delivery infrastructure and constrictions must rest primarily with the distribution agencies. The most tonnage the delivery system in Ethiopia has ever handled, was 790,000 in a year, which means if an emergency develops requiring over a million tons of relief food the chances of meeting the need adequately are slim, unless circumstances affecting the transport sector change drastically.
29 ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
TABLE 1: USAID/Addis Food Need Assessment CY 1988 Food Deficit
A. Normal Consumption 7,316 156 KG/Person 46.9 Million People Domestic Staple Food Production
B. Gross Production (Cereals and Pulses)
C. Less Seed Requirements 'l) 5,764
D. Less Post-Harvest Losses '2) 317
E. Net Production (Cereals and Pulses) 865 Additional Domestic Food Production
F. Enset (3) 550
G. Potatoes (4) 80
H. Milk Offtake (5) 304
I. Total Domestic Food Production (E Plus F Plus G Plus H) 5,516
J. Import Requirement (A - I) 1,800
K. Net Available Commercial Food Imports (L - M) 175
L. Anticipated Commercial Food Imports 200
M. Anticipated Commercial Food Exports (Pulses) '6) 25
N. Total CY 1988 Food Deficit (J - K) 1,625
0. Structural Deficit 449
P. Regular Food AID Programs (7) 167
Q. Uncovered Structural Deficit (0 - P) 282
R. Total CY 1988 Emergency Deficit (N - 0) 1,176
30 TABLE 1 (continued)
S. Carryover Relief Stocks (Dec. 31, 1987) 192
T. CY 1987 Relief Food Still To Arrive '8) 116
U. CY 1988 Emergency Deficit (Excl. CY 88 Pledges) (R - S - T) 868
NOTES: (1) Seed requirements are estimated as 5.5 percent of gross product. (2) Post-harvest losses are estimated as 15 percent gross production. (3) USAID/Addis Ababa estimate. (4) USAID/Addis Ababa estimate. (5) USAID/Addis Ababa estimate. (6) USAID/Addis Ababa estimate.
31 ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
TABLE 2: FAO Estimates of Cereal Import and Food Aid Requirement for 1988
1987/88 Production of Cereals and Pulses
Net of Seed, Feed and Waste 5,040
Drawdown of AMC Stocks 200
Contribution From Food Security Reserve 50
Availability For Consumption in 1988 5,290
1988 Consumption Requirement (Population 47.3 Million) Cereals 6,150
Pulses 615
TOTAL 6,765
Shortfall 1,475
Anticipated Commercial Imports 150
Food Aid Requirement in Cereals 1,325
(Of Which Exceptional/Emergency Requirement) (1,025)
32 ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
TABLE 3: Number of People Likely to Entirely Depend on Relief Food in 1988
Food Requirement in MT
Administrative Affected Grain Supple- Edible Region Population mentary Food Oil
Eritrea 1,049,500 188,910 17,758 4,005 Bale 30,200 5,436 511 115 Gamo Gofa 32,500 5,850 550 124 Gonder 292,400 52,652 4,947 1,116 Hararghe 925,400 166,572 15,658 3,531 Sidamo 320,400 57,672 5,421 1,223 Shewa 511,000 91,980 8,646 1,950 Tigray 1,035,900 186,462 17,527 3,953 Wello 1,017,100 183,078 17,209 3,881
TOTAL 5,214,400 938,592 88,227 19,898
Source: RRC
33 Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Conclusions
o Food Needs Assessments are needed in order to calculate the magnitude of the food import need and to differentiate between structural and emergency deficits.
o There are differing mechanisms used to do food assessments. USAID constructs a food balance sheet which compares aggregate consumption requirements to aggregate availabilities.
o As a rule, food assessments are calculated too late to serve as "early warnings" and, if used as a first indicator of an impending food crisis, will almost guarantee that a gap will exist before food can be delivered and dis tributed.
0 Needs assessments usually do not factor in elements such as delivery in frastructure capability or political constraints.
2. Recommendations
o USAID should continue to calculate food needs assessments. However, such assessments should be done more often and be tied closely to crop cycles in Ethiopia. They should not be relied on as early warning indicators in isolation. Their function is to confirm the early warning alerts and define the magnitude of the import needs.
0 Mid-July to late August has been identified as a crucial time in Ethiopia's crop year. It is recommended that careful monitoring of rainfall and crop conditions, bi-weekly early warning reports on the country situation and a food needs assessments be done during this time period. February/March following the Belg, would be another optimal time for issuance of a Food Needs Assessment.
34 IV. THE US RESPONSE TO THE 1988 DROUGHT EMERGENCY
A. Introduction
Ethiopia's 1986 harvest was the best in four years and it was hoped that an end had finally come to the terrible food crisis that had effected Ethiopia starting in 1983. Because of this hopeful sign, A.I.D. made a determination to phase down its mission and program. It was decided to retain a minimal presence, discontinuing emergency food assistance in favor of a few, selected regular PVO programs and leaving one A.I.D. foreign service officer in Addis to monitor and manage this on-going assistance. The regular program level was to be capped at 22,000 MT. This optimism and strategy were short lived.
USAID conducted a needs assessment in January of 1987 and unfortunately it indicated a food deficit of 884,000 MT. While this was a significant improvement from the 1986 deficit of 1.2 million MT, it was far above that of a forecast done the preceding August which had led to some of the optimism of a return to "normal". The bumper harvest predicted had simply not materialized, at least in the peasant sector, which accounts for 95 percent of Ethiopia's agricultural production. Already pledged assistance and carryover stocks could help to meet much of this deficit, but not all, and the US had to reconsider its earlier decisions to drastically scale down its assistance and presence.
B. The Level and Timing of the US Response
One of the prime causes of the shortfall was the not unexpected failure of the peasant sector to recover in the short 1986 respite from the effects of the previous three-year famine. In April of 1987 A.I.D. made its first response to the newly projected un-met deficit and reported spreading needs in the north, where unfavorable weather results were exacerbated by ever increasing civil conflict. It approved 10,000 MT of emergency food assistance to be programmed and distributed through the JRP in Eritrea and Tigray.
In August, following the UN and RRC alert, the USAID representative informed Washington that Ethiopia was again facing a serious drought and famine threat. At the same time, while early contacts with some donors indicated a reluctance to speed up already pledged assistance or to make new commitments prior to the main harvest, the NGOs with whom the US had worked during the 1984-85 drought emergency indicated their capability and willingness to gear up for an increased effort if needed. During the same month a request was made to Washington for immediate approval of another 10,000 MT of emergency wheat and oil for the north. The developing crisis also made it evident that a larger A.I.D. staff would be required to manage and implement a rapidly expanding assistance effort.
35 Both the issue of staff and of emergency food needs were quickly addressed by Washington. In the absence of detailed information on the extent of the developing emergency, USAID, assisted by the visit of the FVA/FFP Ethiopian backstop officer, used the information gathered and requests submitted by the NGOs who had been the implementors of the U.S. 1984/5 emergency relief program to define the problem and response. Original requests were for 209,108 MT of Title II food, full internal transport funding and some necessary support costs. Given the lack of detail and the uncertainty of the final need, it was decided by Washington and the DCC Food Aid Subcommittee to approve a first tranche of 114,252 MT, which would cover the projected needs through April. Transport and support grants were also approved. The need to restaff was acknowledged and eventually five full-time A.I.D. positions were established and local hire and contract staff employee hired as needed.
Even this extraordinarily early response from the US, joined now by many of the other donors, was not quick enough to totally prevent the beginnings of nutritional deprivation and stress. Some movement of populations had begun as early as August 1987; carry-over stocks and balances were being rapidly depleted; the pipeline was thin; and the transport system had deteriorated. Moreover, experience in Ethiopia had shown that it took between five and seven months for a pledge of food aid to be delivered to the actual beneficiaries. So even if approved immediately by Washington, the food would unlikely have any impact before January at the earliest.
C. The Objectives of the US and Other Donors In Mounting Their Early Response Programs
The US and other donors were determined to do everything possible to avoid a repetition of the 1984-85 starvation and massive shelter feeding programs. By prepositioning food stocks and beginning early distributions, while the affected populations were still strong enough to carry rations and return to their farms, it was hoped that the displacements of 1984-85 would not recur. Haunted by the remembrances of those years, the US and other donors responded quickly and efficiently to meet the needs even before the official needs assessments and requests of November. (see Tables 4 through 7 for total US and other donor aid pledges). By April of 1988 confirmed food pledges totalled 1.04 million MTs. Port and logistical capacities were greatly improved, airlift operations implemented where needed, and financial support for transport and management granted to the PVO implementors.
D. Program Implementation
1. Implementing agencies
Once the commitment by the US and other donors had been made to prevent an impending famine, everything possible had to be done to assure delivery to the most at-risk populations at the earliest possible time.
36 ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
Table 4: USG Food Aid Assistance to Ethiopia (FY 1988)
Commodity Ocean Internal Total Commodities Value Freight Transport Value Program (NIT) ($'000) ($'000) (S'O00) ($'000) Emergency CARE 53,924 8,028.8 4,178.0 4,228.8 16,435.6 CRS/MC 2,346 561.9 293.3 281.6 1,136.8 FHI 9,500 1,435.8 746.3 1,374.6 3,556.7 ICRC 1,502 646.0 187.8 194.5 1,028.3 JRP 131,525 22,210.8 11,385.6 15,868.7 49,465.1 LICROSS 9,000 1,712.0 725.0 440.8 2,877.8 OXFAM/UK 1,185 490.8 148.1 65.2 704.1 SCF/UK 1,065 308.9 133.1 74.4 516.4 SCF/US 22,902 3,473.5 1,900.3 2,083.5 7,457.3 UNHCR 3,324 1,221.4 415.5 435.4 2,072.3 UNICEF 1,125 326.3 140.6 69.2 536.1 WVRO 13.094 2.211.1 1.056.8 1.367.5 4 Subtotal 250,492 42,627.3 21,310.4 26,484.2 90,421.9 Regular CARE 4,165 617.5 320.6 938.1 CRS 3,780 1,779.8 472.5 2,252.3 EOC 3,310 537.0 258.8 795.8 FHI 3,068 452.8 236.0 688.8 SCF/US 2.500 312.5 187.5 500.0 Subtotal 16,823 3,699.6 1,475.4 5,175.0 Monetised CARE 340 242.1 42.5 284.6 EOC 391 278.4 48.9 327.3 FHI 560 398.7 70.0 468.7 SCF/US 260 185.1 32.5 217.6 Subtotal 1,551 1,104.3 193.9 1,298.2 TOTAL 268,866 47,431.2 22,979.7 26,484.2 96,895.1
37 ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION
Table 5: USG Non-Food Aid Assistance to Ethiopia (FY 1989)
(OFDA Operational Support Grants and Contracts) Agricultural Agency Non-Food Aid Description Value Rehab. Total AJDC Orphan Shelter Improvement 52.5 478.2 530.7 AIRSERV Two Twin Otter Aircraft 1,619.0 1,619.0 CARE Program Support 1,081.4 361.9 1,443.3 CRS/ECS Program Support 794.5 850.7 1,645.2 CRDA Plastic Sheeting, Blankets 394.0 394.0 CRDA Air Transport - Supplies 200.0 200.0 CRDA Orphan Projects 93.9 93.9 EOC 121.0 121.0 FAO Locust Control 380.5 380.5 FAO Pesticide Assessment Team 3.0 3.0 FHI Program Support 936.8 393.8 1,330.6 LICROSS 1,055.2 1,055.2 LWN'F/E EC M Y 225.0 225.0 SCF/US Program Support 151.4 392.2 543.6 SCF/US Orphan Projects 564.7 564.7 UNICEF Medical Kits 2,500.0 2,500.0 UN/EPPG Staff 307.0 307.0 UN/WFP 28 Trailers 1,063.0 1,063.0 UN/WTOE Truck Rehabilitation 1,500.0 1,500.0 UN/WTOE Truck Purchase 2,500.0 2,500.0 WVRO Program Support 666.4 498.0 1,164.4 Total Non-Food Aid 14,808.1 4,376.0 19,184.1 Food Aid Assistance: 96.895.0 TOTAL FY 1988 USG ASSISTANCE 116,079.1
38 ETHIOPIA DROUGET EVA ATI0:" :able 6: Tina! Reort or. 298E Emergency Food Aie*
2R86 E-erpency Food Aid Pledres Arrivint in ).E7 nnd :SE: I onor Grin uDr .ooc rt.:r Sur Food TTA For RRC For RC For S IL)-c'r II A~CU V. C, 2
CFCE L) u 0 52, 2 L0usnrzr h 0 l 2 , land U 0 L1 Finn R'ed X LI . . .)U 1 .400 FrGice U ; 00(1" " "UV FRC 6 0 i'562 21.',i p 1 R n G /B 0 6 U *6 X 'F GDR U U U 4". ICR U ,71)0 E5, 2. E '.a 7,000 4,27v 2P.U6 0 4 . ul 0orn Red 2 U U 5 1 U 6 LI CRrSS U U 4 .UUL U 4 UU0 M.erl. F. Men. 20.000 U U 20.0002 Menonn ves 0U U 6. 1 F. Netherlands 0 [l . ,022 ' ' 67.17,3 Ne the riands F,1: 0 C1 U b6 68 Ot~.her 5 o 4B2 u .. E30 2,7] Rzaooa Sarnen U 0 (I 0000 Reed Barn . 4,000 40 6.0UU U 20,40 5 ecn U 4 c o[i '.!n U (0 .''i i:U £29'UUL UK 0 'Z: Gu U US, U U 2".7F.'F8"V.0 4I.,:, SSF 240,!sS: .27314 U U U 0.177'3 wP/ 2U,00U Ci 7P2..300 5.8E87 U . 0U 272V20.00C'' S U3 , SV2-C , ,DIE .....
2988 e en cy Fooc Aid Ped;e s To r,--iv e :n 2E: SDone- r FeR Supp7 cr -R"CFood Gr--n Su:p- Food'"C' s..< TOTAL
Austria 7,000 0 U U - 7.000 Caa0 a 55. U.5U'") "., :1 -.2 fr .2,4 -1-:00 , ) L -UObb 0 0 0 USAUK; C0 C00 E,75 V £5095U E.750 USSR 12,550 L) 0 0 . 3'5"StT"!7.0O2-c20 "::.421 80T 3- U 1 5 0 . T .426 ''°' -..... G-.hA.. 7 AL ,7-1.2 :.,91E ..,:222,2 F7.PC0 1.C147,, .4
.C7' : .1 - 0._ . . I!:'
S0UFSE: "ncr= .oo F'.ogr=e, A s l-ab-, :c:3ia.
39 Table: 7 1988 Non-Food Relief Pledges
Type of Assistance Amount (U.S. Dollars)
Agricultural Assistance $ 17,729,836
Health Assistance 11,263,591
Airlift Operation I 35,369,822
Water/Sanitation Assistance 6,790,849
Logistics 3,268,255
Ports 5,345,551
Relief/Shelters 5,785,155
Road Transport 48,129,981
Transport Subsidy 29,152,650
Warehousing 7,579,401
Other Assistance 20,413,536
TOTAL NON-FOOD EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE: $191,511,627
1 Includes donations through EEC, CARITAS and the UN Emergency Transport Fund.
NOTE: These figures include all UN agencies and are updated as of January 6, 1988.
40 The UN accepted a continuation of its coordinating role and launched appeals, served as interlocutor with GPDRE, provided operational support of WTOE, airlift coordination and port monitoring.
CARE, CRS, EOC, FHI and SAVE/US already had approved regular US food programs which were intended to assist the process of drought recovery. Many of these now served as the base for mobilization and expansion of relief feeding. In addition, in December A.I.D. approved food for seven other relief agencies working in the most severely distressed areas, as well as a second tranche i)f emergency food for the previously approved agencies. To assist the RRC, which is responsible for coordinating all relief activities, the UN agencies, the League of the Red Cross (LRCS)/Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) and some 50 NGOs were involved in the 1988 emergency relief effort. Major agencies assisting in the distribution of food and other emergency items in Eritrea and Tigray included the LRCS and ERCS and the US-supported Joint Relief Partnership (JRP) which is comprised of the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, Catholic Relief Services, the Lutheran World Federation and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The JRP also worked in Hararghe, Wello, Shewa, Keffa, Illubabort and Wellega.
Other major agencies were located as follows: '
o Wello: Oxfam-UK, Wcrld Vision International (WVI). ERCSJapan International Volunteers Center, Save the Children-UK (SCF-UK), Society of International Missionaries (SIM), Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus(EECMY),Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC);
" Gondar: Food for the Hungry International (FHI), ERCS, Canadian Physicians for African Relief, Joint Distribution Committee;
" Showa: Save the Children Federation WVI, ERCS Baptist Mission of Ethiopia, FHI, Baptist General Conference Mission, Swedish Philadelphia Church Mission;
o Sidamo: CARE, WVI, ERCS, Redd Barna, EOC, Norwegian Church Aid, SIM, CONCERN;
o Bale: ERCS, Norwegian Church Aid; and
o Hararghe: CARE, Hararghe Catholic Secretariat.
An unfortunate occurrence was the expulsion of ICRC from Ethiopia. Since 1984, ICRC had focussed its relief operation on the northern provinces (Eritrea, Tigray, north Wello and Gonder). They made an effort to distribute in the regions most affected by the combined
'Agencies receiving US support are underlined.
41 effects of conflict and drought. In 1987, as soon as the early warning signs indicated that a new crop failure and serious food shortage were imminent, the ICRC launched a new preventative relief effort. To do this they called for an "open road" policy in order to transport assistance to points as close as possible to where people lived. In March of 1988, the RRC accused the ICRC of making untrue statements about obstruction of food convoys. In April foreign relief aid workers serving in Eritrea and Tigray were instructed to leave the conflict areas "for their own safety." In June ICRC was given 24 hours to end its operations and remove its assets. They were eventually given permission to turn over their assets (trucks and food) to other relief agencies. The removal of ICRC from Ethiopia meant that other agencies, particularly the Eritrean and Tigrean Catholic Secretariats and the Ethiopian Red Cross had to act rapidly to reach the beneficiaries formerly covered by ICRC. This transfer of responsibility was successful to a great extent, but disruptions in food supplies did occur in some areas.
2. Commodity arrivals
CRS received its first emergency allocation of 10,000 MT for the north in August of 1987. The remainder of the first emergency allocation arrivals were scheduled from November 1987 to April of 1988. This left some areas with slim stocks and delayed the start-up of some programs. The voluntary agencies cooperated among themselves and borrowed and swapped stocks when necessary. One of the most important elements in early start-up of the 1988 emergency program was the Ethiopian Food Security Reserve. Originally envisioned as a rotating, in-country reserve of 250,000 MT, it had achieved a level of 90,000 tons during the latter part of 1987. With the announcement of the emergency requirements for 1988, the RRC drew down some 32,000 tons to be prepositioned and ready for early distribution in the drought affected regions. Sixteen NGOs borrowed over 48,000 tons from the FSR for the same purpose to be repaid later in the year when their pledged shipments of relief food arrived. Their collateral for these loans were donor commitments to their agencies. In addition to the borrowings from the FSR, over 47,000 tons of varying commodities were borrowed or swapped by the US-supported NGOs among themselves or with other relief agencies.
Arrivals of US food in November/December were approximately 12,000 MT; January/February 54,000 MT; March 14,000, and April 65,000 MT so the US managed to deliver some 145,000 MT (60 percent of the US pledge) of relief before stocks began to build up at the ports, particularly Assab. As Table 6 indicates, 969,653 MT of emergency food aid pledges arrived by December 1988. Massawa performance was vastly improved and port authorities made an effort to keep berthing delays to the minimum. To ease congestion the port authorities used an out-of-port storage area identified by WTOE. Assab, on the other hand, had the same problem that arose in 1985 and 1986; i.e., peak food arrivals in April/May and June coincided with the arrival of fertilizer, commercial grain and harvest movements. Build up peaked in July, at a record level of 302,000 MT at
42 port, with lay offs of up to 53 days. During this time the US diverted some shipments to try and decrease the amount of US commodity backed up at port. At Djibouti both port performance and railway offtake were disappointing through most of the year. Food was poorly stored in unclean storage areas. Peak food aid stocks at Djibouti reached 41,230 tons in July. It had been hoped that railway offtake would average 10,000 tons per month; however, actual performance averaged only 6,875 tons per month. This was an average, and in some months the offtake was considerably less. Highest offtake was in January, 10,398 tons, and July, 10,119. This dismal performance contributed to the deteriorating nutritional levels of Hararghe, an area which needed more assistance, but because of logistical problems, among other factors, received an insufficient level during most of the year.
One major shipping mishap occurred during the 1988 emergency program--Kuwaiti tanker Qarouh with 19,616 MT Title II commodities destined for Ethiopia collided with another vessel December 15, 1987 off the coast of Florida. Cargo consisted of the second shipment of the first USG tranche of commodities consigned to CRS, SCF and FHI. This problem, if not resolved, would have left the PVOs with very low or no food stocks. SAVE/US borrowed 3,000 tons from SAVE/UK to help maintain their program, CRS shifted programs to cover the shortfall and FHI borrowed from the Security Reserve. The availability of food in country once again prevented this type of logistical snag to be expected in emergency situations, from becoming a major problem.
3. Transportation network
The Multidonor Relief Transport Capacity Study was conceived in early 1987 as a preparedness measure to examine future scenarios for emergency food distributions. The timing of their visit to Ethiopia in mid-1987 was fortuitous. They were able to refocus their study to make specific recommendations for the 1988 effort. The recommendations included the need for new trucks, the transfer of trucks to the north, spare parts and recovery, need for port equipment and the establishment of air transport. By the end of the year, more than $30 million had been pledged for new trucks for WTOE, RRC, ICRC/ERCS/League of Red Cross and various NGOs. In addition, approximately $20 million was pledged for spare parts, workshops, and experts to rehabilitate the older RRC, NGO and WTOE trucks. While this, plus the move of approximately 170 trucks from the south of the country to the north early in 1988 certainly contributed to an overall excellent performance by the transport sector, a number of problems affected the ability of trucking fleets to meet consistently the needs of agencies in relief food distribution.
In late 1987 the first of a series of attacks on food convoys in the north occurred. USAID indicated that by July 1988, Ketena had lost 93 trucks, WTOE 17, JRP 3, and FHI 2. Other problems included diversion of government trucks at times to the war front, large fertilizer deliveries at Assab, which caused delays in food aid deliveries and serious
43 flooding of roads, particularly in the main rains. WTOE reported that they were able to deliver 387,000 MT during the year of total food off take from Ethiopian ports, and more than 63,000 MT of supplies to refugees in both west and east Ethiopia. At the end of 1988, with new truck donations and 14 on loan in the north from ICRC, the WTOE trucking fleet totalled 338; 73 in the north and the rest in the southern part of Ethiopia.
Discussions with the US food distributors indicated, that the most efficient and least trouble-prone systems particularly for short-haul trucking frequently were those of the NGOs themselves. A NGO who had its own adequate trucking fleet did not have to depend upon the unreliable commercial and often overburdened WTOE trucking systems to deliver commodities when needed to where needed. By the end of 1988, a total of 788,648 tons had been delivered to beneficiaries or to storage sites (See Table 8) by all systems.
4. Air transport
The consequences of the security situation in the north on the transport system meant that by November of 1987 it was clearly perceived that if the affected populations were to be reached to any large extent, a massive emergency airlift operation would be required. An urgent appeal to mount such an operation was made to donors by the UN and the rapid response meant that the first UNDRO chartered Hercules landed in Mekele with vital food supplies in early December. This was followed by a second UNDRO chartered Hercules a month later. At the same time a similar operation was launched for the JRP and ICRC programs by EEC and Caritas. At the height of the airlift, in March of 1988, five Hercules C-130s, three Soviet Antonov 12s and two RRC DC 3s were making daily shuttles from Assab/Massawa and Asmara to Makele and other northern airstrips. By the end of the operation more than 93,100 MT had been transported by air to the north and to refugees in eastern Ethiopia. In addition to the heavy aircraft operation, 20 light aircraft were also involved in airlift activities ferrying food over short distances to remote areas affected by drought. Among these were two Twin Otters purchased by A.I.D. through Air Serv.
The Baptist Mission of Ethiopia (BME) was active in a community development program in Merhabete and Menz and Gishe awrajas in northern Shewa even before the famine of 1984-85. During the famine they switched to relief efforts. Due to extremely rough terrain and deep canyons many of the distribution points were inaccessible by road and air drops had to be used. FHI was in a similar situation in Gayint awraja in the south eastern part of Gonder. The Polish Government subsidized five Antonov-2 twin wing aircraft to help meet the requirement to fly up to 2,000 MT of food a month to the BME area. A.I.D. purchased two Twin Otters and contracted with Air Serv International to assist. From November 1987 to December 1, 1988 the two Twin Otters carried 6,716.6 MT of food into the needy areas of N. Showa and Gonder.
44 ETHIOPIA DROUGHT EVALUATION Table 8: 1988 Stocks Carried Over Into 1989 ...... ------POET , [ G 1 0 F I L 1 1 0 C I I 31/12/11! :: TC AL ...... l/]/ IALI [ 1TRLL GAKO CC AE COKDE8 EI.LECB[ ILULAL [AFt SELEI. SlIikKO TIGLAI VELECA VELLO kSO A!
SGOrt ":311121
111! AAI 11! * :: Am A *,
5112 "l 4.1C M5,l Inn 3E)D In 131 $491
2D2 1301 1D0 1137 159I 411 :: 4" : 2084 115 044
12211 2000 4 731:::: 1426474
A ~ 641
Wt 12 1E 57 3S371 M I 12400 HID 1 3 11M 157229 4 1i 5133 )D1204
41 SUMA )460
20IOL 21 G[ FIF242 IE 211 ::AlIAE 22156
I Al o 1377k : i 15152 19!! 937 3E7$ 2381 1050 13!! 2112! 1520 4451 3E 1430! :: 1537!!
Al
TOTAL 11105 I1! 35151~ 2100 937 [35 17117 1050 1368 p724 2E92 11389 315 28121,, 32810 PLUS 1981 PLEDGES ALHIJYIF IF 19!! 113853
SUETOAL 442680 LESS FG0 LEP).ThEFTS TO FSE 21711
TOILL AVAILABLE IF 19! 4!9(
45 5. Warehousin2
Since the 1984-85 drought many relief agencies have constructed or put in place satellite warehousing and storage so beneficiaries will not have to walk as far to pick up their rations.
Total countrywide warehouse capacity is estimated by the UN at around 1.4 million MT, with main warehouses located at Assab, Massawa, Shashamane, Addis Ababa, Nazareth, Kombolcha and Asmara. Pledges of more than 160,000 MT of emergency warehousing to store food closer to distribution sites for the relief effort were made during 1988. WFP identified and circulated to donors the emergency storage needs of the NGOs and the RRC, which elicited donations of tents, prefabricated warehouses and local warehouse construction. Still, in the harder-to reach localities storage was inadequate to hold more than 1-2 months' supplies.
6. Internal distributions
Internal distributions were probably the most unclear and most troubled sector of the emergency program. While the NGOs and relief organizations reached a large percentage of their targeted beneficiaries, for a number of reasons such as bottlenecks in transportation, disputes over lists of beneficiaries or areas of concentration, and intensified conflict, total coverage was not attained, rations were often cut and the total target of 5 million people at risk was not reached. Table 9 compares the locations and estimated number of affected people from 1984 through 1988. While in 1984, 1985 and 1986 emergency needs were generally country-wide, in 1988 at-risk areas were primarily in the northern regions.
The PVOs had not submitted their final distribution lists at the time of the team visit and the RRC has issued only a preliminary report of coverage, Table 10. Table 11 is the JRP distribution figures for the areas they covered. Following are brief summaries on coverage in the various areas based on the incomplete information available at this time. a. Eritrea
Despite escalating security problems, and the evacuation of expatriate relief agency staff in April of 1988, it appears that the distribution of relief food in Eritrea continued at a high level throughout the year. The JRP, using its Eritrean Catholic Secretariat partner to distribute food in 27 still accessible relief centers out of the 37 previously established sites, managed to reach the bulk of their targeted populations. The League of Red Cross/Ethiopian Red Cross assisted ECS in replacing the former ICRC assistance. The RRC claims that, with all the relief programs, average monthly beneficiary levels through the year were 1.11 million. JRP shows actual monthly beneficiary levels from 57 to 104 percent of targeted populations during the year.
46 TABLE 9: Location and Number of People Affected:
NUMBER OF PEOPLE AT RISK
REGION 1984 1985 1986 1988
Wello 1,790,840 2,897,380 1,547,310 1,017,100
Tigray 1,331,890 1,429,390 1,000,000 1,035,900
Eritrea 877,000 827,000 650,000 1,049,500
Gonder 376,500 860,240 340,720 292,400
Sidamo 768,410 675,490 441,800 320,400
Gamo Gofa 187,000 279,280 152,470 32,500
Hararghe 419,120 1,744,200 1,520,000 925,400
Shewa 435,860 1,332,250 708,810 511,000
Arsi 2,530 220,500 19,670 0 2
Bale 188,200 195,580 99,000 30,200
Gojam 35,200 163,580 0 3
Illubabor 33,080 0 101,600 0 2
Kefa 1,500 29,000 90,000 0 2
,elega 0 149,190 116,470 0 2
Assab 45,000 0 0 0 2
TOTAL 6,492,180 10,803,080 6,787,850 5,214,400
2 Pockets of distress, but still surplus.
3 Shortfalls in production can be locally met.
47 Table 10: Eritrea & Tigray Food Distributions--Preliminary Report
Source: Regional RRC Offices and Relief Agencies Revised: 02-Feb-89 Prepared by: UN Emergency Prevention and Preparedness Group (EPPG)
FERnT Trn A
SUARY N10 TI LT F 0 00 DISTIBUTION S SUN.I. S ci JANI T00 UN3,3 : ------ : JAN ,1 DISTIBTING ------,,Jill,Ills : Au1t, 1lls September, 190 : October I9 ' November, 1 ,11 December, 19 I . ------1--- OGANIZATION AV. go. : TOTAL : ------, ------., ----. .------EREFIC'S 'NITRIC TONS: INIIFIC'S :1imiC TONS: 8ENIF[C'S :ogTIIC TONS: NIN ,FIC'S :NITiC TONS' IENFIC'S :NTIIC TONS: BENIFIC'S . .TIICTONS: BN .FIC'S:METRIC TONS: IE.nEIC'S:NTIIC TONS: aRC : 287,001 23,175 432,17 : 6 1,215 T 700,319 ' 1,11 " 14,540 : o1651 412,271 1122 jaP 454,48 39,014 16,531 1,240 13,424 ,121 142,124 2,100 318,167 62,211 816,170 1,4869 731,104 10,024 16,224 1.130 423,025 S,115 284,424 3,189 554,171 45,T41 ICIC/83cs 49.,83 4,952 83,612 1,128 144,305 118219 153,402 2,513 1m1,121 2,1731 10,117 :11 811288 13,325 Svc 833 is ,010 36 4,103 :5 ,,988 3 5,360 114 2,552 313 NOA 100,020 9,722 5,72:1 1,567 161,037 1,351 2,15 200 16,44: 13,845
IlTIRA SUB-TOTAL 102,035 1,138 1,20,111 1,061 1,773,371 24,051 1,51,59 2114481 1,271,817 16,165 78,537 11,446 437,315 1O0O 1,113,407 175,515 ...... :::::::::::::::: ZI G fAY
SUNNART : N 0 T ILY 00T DIST, l TIONS : SUNNAIISINCI JAN I TO JUNE 30, 198: ------0------JAN 1, 1 ,------IST I BTING ------: J l , Is : lugust, 188 : September, 1911 : October 118 November, 1988 : December, 1981---J -1-1 - - - OGANIZATIO AVG. . : TOTAL : ------:------1- AVG.NO. : TOTAL 8ENEFIC'S :NITRIC TONS: BENIFIC'S :ITIIC TONS: B9NEFIC'S INETIC ON, BI C'S :IETIIC TONS: ENEFIC'S :NTIC TONS: I8NFIC'S :NETEIC TONS: 8EIEFIC'S :ETIIC TONS: RONEFIC'S :EETIIC TONS:
114,536 14,799 60,791 113 100,474 1,541 98,214 1,352 13,212 1,106 56,288 814 32,348 488 137,359 21,083 Jke IRLI C249,34 21,328 164,412 2,405 219,422 3,228 204,186 3,108 197,574 3,002 233,368 3,525 11,1604 1,661 243,444 30,337 !RPADIGRAT CKT11 129,007 ,080 88,55 39: 1,615 804 78,245 ge4 38,15 440 33,430 401 98,195 12,540 ICaC/uECS 153.159 13,888 811,488 1,173 139,415 1,844 144,768 21624 173,012 2,173 0 0 142.713 21,702 liC (Alamatal 20,301 1,954 2,102 35 69,917 886 58,163 1,09T 10,463 177 0 0 0 0 23,735 4,141 OA 41,355 4,006 18,111 : 293 1,67 210 15,008 243 : ,78 126 13,765 223 6,975 113 28,386 5,214
T[GIAT SUB-TOTAL 787,734 65,045 334,071 4,15 555,583 7,102 595,351 8,528 S1,960 1,475 510,613 7,166 . 152,931 , 2,26! 674,276 103,0931 ...... rcvrAL.I IxI :Efl 'r R,.E A. ANDII1 'r7 (3n_1 aY ...... SUMNARY 1 ONT IL T FOO0D D IS TEII I UTIO 1SSUMR IC JAN I TOJUNE 30,1988:------JAN 1.,1900 ------: Juil,19881 August, 1911 : September, 1988 : October 198 November, 1580 : December, 1908 : S---NN------S----C AVGA.O. : TOTAL :.. . , , , A ...... TONS: REI +,,:NITRIC TONS: 8 +,:NITRIC+TONS:,oMEFlCS BENIFIC'S :NITIC TS: :NITRIC TONS: BENEFIC'S :NITRIC ------TONS:ENEFIC'S :METRIC TONS: B,,EFIC'S :NETRIC TONS: GUN TOTAL ,1,19,719: 141,983 : 1,544,071: 23,771 :2,325,154 31,511 : 2,181,43: 30,316 : 1"?.83,157 13,1 0 : 1,11,200: 14,112 : 510,291 14322, : ,17I7,14 : 3,1 iET:EW* - EthiopimnCrois: SVC Social Velfare Center (Catholic Cathedral of Asmara) NOA : Ministry ofAgriculture, ERCS z Ethlopiamled Crosn Society (ERCS began distribution toICEC beneficiaries InAogust.) OTES: Jkp figure, forJun., Feb., Xurch and April are thelatest revisions anofKay 23rd. N(A Food forNork ton ges have been divided by 16.2 his toobtain tbe mumber of theoreitical emergency beneficiaries. ozra trted distribution forsoutbern Tilray atAlasata inearly April. NooWfas ditribvtions for June atAlamat. From July onvards EIC distributed at Alasta IC Tigray filure. for arch and Nay include EC Food forVonk ditributionn vhich have been converted toemergescy beneficiaries by dividia tbe FFV tons ditribted by 16.2 kg. ET11IOPTA EROUGIIT EVALUATION
Table 10: WOLLO Preliminary Distribution Figures (cont.)
Source: Regional RRC Offices and Relief Agencies Prepared by: UN Emergency Prevention and Preparedness Group (EPPG) Date of last revision: 02-Feb
O[$TRIUTiiN SUBMIT 1 0 1 T I L F 0 0 D DISTRIBUTIONS SUINA! SINCE OIGAIIZATION JAN ITOJUNE 30, ills: ------I...... ------JAN1,18I AID ------: July, 19aa Insut, lilt September, 1188 Octcber, 191 November, 1388 December, 188 --...... AVAAJAS CO$ KED AVG.NO. TOTA- - - 1- AVG. NO. : TOTAL EINIFIC'S :UTilC TONS: IKNKFIC'K :1NT1IC TONS: IIRFIC'S :191C TONS: BiMIP[C'S :IKTIIC TONS: IKNIFIC'S : TIIC TONS: BINKFIC'S :IKTIC TONS: gIryic'S :EKTE1C TONS: IINS. -NITEIC TONS ...... ------~~~~~------I ..... IC - as 133,633 11,13: : 0 o 0 0 ------: 0 0 0: 0:------ : 61,122 12,213 RIC - Lasts 6,682: 12,133 115,111 1,102 53,182 810 156,001 2,415 15,463 1,510 30,805 492 0 0 18,198 13,11 tic -V. pelatta 121,15: 1.080: 12,41: 116 0 0 4,124 71 5,114 86 0 0 9,130 1,433 tic -lore&& 22,424 3,036: 54,351: 1 40 80,858 1,229 49,01: 191 19,350 1,254 0 0 0 0 40,471 1,1 8 tic - Aia 26,234 2,401: 33,88 I22 18171 283 105,421 1,60: 85,116 1,292 10,311 1,259 0 0 41,398 1,461
Sub total RIC - 261,28: 25,41: 111,133: 3,314: 1.110: 2,518: 311,235: 4,818: 264,113: 4,321: 106,531: 1,831: 0: 0 238,111: 42,142:
[ICS - Ambacel 30,68 : 2,566 132,142 : : 16,506 : 1,142 : 1 0,083 : ,2116 90,310 : 1,461 : O: : 0 : 0 52,156 : 6,318 8ICS - iale 64,440: 5,41: 11,000: : 145,139: 2,901 : 165,923 : 2,260 161,131: 2,185: 0: 0 0: : 85,186: 13,423:
% total - tiCS : 15,116: 1,013 201,142: 3,314: 222,445: 4,043 : 251,00: 3,41 2151,501: 4,2t, 0:: O: 131,942 19,811 :
4010v - hia/Ibo 12,132 1,162 78,123 140 144,360 12,165 63,131 182 118,531 2,701 0 0 O o 78,161 13,858 VVI -ere limeo: 38,414 3,351 45,615 528 41,503 381 20,218 324 13,148 294 15,93: 1,136 12,133 233 38,16 61,2158 JVC - Were limeno: 12,425 613 IT,333 260 20,38 341 0 0 23,210 361 28,434 456 4,321 10 14,629 t 2,101 By - Tejo : 25,300 I,131 34,020 433 55,61: 144 22,400 2119 52,028 I14 34,813 431 0 0 30,501 4,314 IOC - essie-turia: 18,12 1,608 43,416 05 53,124 131 46,188 1 15 32,688 414 44,480 556 0 : 28,613 4,523 Sit -Mere [im : 32,313 2,371 86,160 1,325 9,103: 1,46: 14,521 1,428 90,631 1,394 0 0 0 0 49,034 8,41
TOTAL 511,250 : 50,819 135,101 : 10,611 802,101 : 12,31 : 815,411 : 11,912 31,414 : 14,222 213,411 : 4,421 : 11,254 303 636,0031: 111,50' XOIS:
ALL FIGRS All FIELINIMAIT AID SUBJECT TO COIHIITIOI 1]REC January figures are for the Ithopia louth of Jai.10to Feb. 8 &ad the February figures are for Feb. 9 to approx larch 13. March figures are for larch 13toApril 1. April figures are April 10to lay I1. 2)SCF (UI) figures for February are the combined figures for the mouths of Jauvary aid Februeary. larch SC? (OK) figures include Narch and mout of April. lay figures include remaiader of April plug ly. 3)tICS larch figures are for larch and early April. 4) JVC figures for February ire the combined figurem for the moutbs of January sd February. 51Oifus figures for southern Tigray at Alanata are NOT imcluded (approximately 1400 toss}. 61 tICS figetoe for April are forAfars only due todelays isfood supplies from Asah. 1)lurinlJuly, RIC distributed SC? food inlays and obe o behalf of SCF. ubmeqsemtly, RIC toob over complete resposm1b1lity for the laym I lob distributions. LI IIlI UP'1 iAIO)LiI I LV 111,LWII U14
Table 10: GONDAR Preliminary Distribution Figures (cont.)
;ource: Regional RRC Offices and Relief Agencies 'repared by: UN Emergency Prevention and Preparedness Group (EPPG)
A,,AJAS SUMARY M o T L FOOD DISTI BUTIONS .SUMMARY SICI AND :JAN I TO JUNK 30198- DISTRIBUTING ------J1l1, 1988 August, i|81 September, 191 8 October, 191 : November, 1981 December, 191 .. - A...... AGENNCIES AVG . NO . ' TOTAL ' " ...... - ---AV. 1 . : TOAL BEIS. :N9TI[C TONS: BKIIRFC'S :NITRIC TONS: IINKFIC'S :NITIIC TONS', DBINIIC'S :NITIC TONS: 1INIFIC'S 'NKTIIC TONS: MBIMFIC'S :NRTIlC TONS BIIFIC'S :ITIIC TONS: BENFIC'S :IITIIC TONS: ------MTINTIc- 8,01 : 643 11,780 11 1 17,40 26 : ------18,240 ------284 23,030 357 ------12,461 101 1l,424 1,115 TINT - FRI 85,517 6,620 130,783 1,504 212,496 1,318 55,000 612 133,314 1,501 15,925 250 11,804 : 264 33,155 12,115 TiNT -CPAI(JIPj 10,495 834 47,681: 685 52,000 1,560 52,295 749 43,682 708 24,921 404 0: 0 24,655 4,940 TINT -GAA 0 0 13,463 425 0 0 32,031 5,129 11,298 13 14,496 235 0: 0 5,19 5,912 %YINT - KICS/ICIC 13,812 1,452 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7,231 1,452 ...... I i TiNT - TOTAL 117, 03 -, 9,549 211,?07 : 2, 91 ',282,236 ', 3 .44 : 15 ,572 , 74 211,384 1, 2,157 : 1,801 : 1 085 11 1,804 254 143,4T2 . 21,154
[BO- tC 29,257 2,487 42,680 640 43,108 641 37,229 51: 19,293 299 19,546 294: 29,33: 4,946: 00 - ROC(JIP) 4,982 429 1,752 : 95 22,012 329 26,896 36 14,119 M7! 26,915 437 : 65,252 986 21,914 3,641 BO - tECS/iKC : 11,411 1,119 0: 0: 0:0 0 0 0 0 0 0: 0 0 5,953 1,119: ------0------I------10O -TOTAL 45,650 : 4,035 : 49,432 : 135 : 65,920 : G1614,125 : 965 93,412 : 1,218 : 46,521 : 731 65,252 ------986 ------57,266 : -----9,106
- Ec 6,802 : 18813,080: 286: 16,047: 249: 1,110: 115: 8,441: 121: 10,293: 154: 20,621: 1,511: MIxEN- EKCSIICEC 6,304: 614 0: 0: 0: 0 43,5111: 506: 41,610: 112: 4,322: 767: 0 0 21,310: 2,139: ------MIEI - TOTAl 13,106 : 1,202 11,098 : 216 16,047 249 : 51,321 : 701: 56,119 : 899 : 51,621 : 921: 0 0 41,938 : 4,250
GRRA- RIC 4,904: 447 3,533: 41 26,719: 401: 1,183: 17 5,165: 96 2,906: 44: 6,046: 1,052: |'EEA- SaCS/ICEC 9,854 : 175 0: 0 16,484 : 1,221 : 60,254 : 911 141,156 : 2,286 : 56,621 : 917 : 0 0 34,925 : 9,51 i;RA- TOTAL 14,158 622 3,533 4 7: 10 ,203 1 1i6221 09,431 1 936 146921 11 2,382 59 52? ------0------951 0 0 40,911 ,570 ------I
)DAR - RC - TOTAL: 8,151 : 195: 9,331 : 140 : 9,530 : 143: 6,470 : 138 : 604 : 19: 22,553 : 33 : : : 9,102 : 1,513: ------DEE TAOR - RIC : 1,98 : 119: 0: 0 29,133 468 : 0: 0: 21,251 : 319 : 0: 0 : : 62,911 : 966
ANDTOTALS : 202,156 : 16,382 : 23,107 : 3,9I : 506,63 : 7,202 : 348,925 : 9,514 : 529,691 : 1,654 : 254,031 : 4,036 : 11.056 : 1.250 : 361,146 : 50,031 )TES:
Duties August, FRI give half rations tobeneficiaries and CFAI gave double rations. RICS, CPAE and GAA figures for October and November are estiates. ETHIOPIA lDROUGIT VAIUATION
Trable 11: 1988 JRP Relief AcLiviLy
* - ; I .. 1UAL 1 '1 a M All; AC IUAL 1 01ST. I £L,;I3;,3; . 1. PI1 I F1f 1 .uL
t i: l i 1rrC crI .•1:. [UEi3. ill I[[.EE -ET'F.r"r. FLiI 114 EF. P1.11,11i01 "'H.E,,Er. Ic" c .- " ..-. Ilt .r . ic;;tr. FI ,,, A -0 .0 IMI 122,i,40 71 770 Ihl 0 3 0
j .. 4r 7.,?i-,. 31,7( 6 7 3 7I? 51 17( ' I a 6 11 i,-'; , (I :.J R 7 713: Q-:. 6 117302,122"36,1,3 111 ,077731 2 . 11 : ;,;1, ('0 ;, 4A T 1,5;L I 72 7,$: f, 'i,37 24 251 : 122,9t1 0,771 5551 : 91 17N 31.411 1 41S 7. .;; : : ,,$; ., i 5 7 16 ,. : ;),l 47 ;" 17 7t,.0 31,117 44 lu 51' 71,110 . G;2 ; f; u:NA'" ( , :.wu i 1,'.1 7 11, E- ; : 1:',2,'I.0 77,; 6 3 1,o 7 ' ,170 47; J7 ;71 7?:IN) ; ;,11 2 40 46 : 122 ,9 0 ( K I ^7 1 J6 7 7,7%1 -,1 1 1 : 2,3'"- 16. >'i0 73 :Si 2.1:7,.>6 1;7, -;: 7 i t. 6,(E. 3 ,iO6 0 460 1122,M00 60,t,6 z.56i$7t 5t 3519iI,70 i : 22, .,,o 1jaifI .4 772 P-66. 1k0 , l11 4; 4I0 I . i ^V;,71 1I 03 s' 1 ilk' I71,77k. IN 1 , 77, 1 I
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------ -- - -- ------ ------I . . . .."- -- I------.. - b. Tigray
In Tigray the situation was much more serious. It is estimated that only two-thirds of the target population was reached in the first half of the year and just over a half serviced through the remainder of 1988 due to restricted road access. JRP established two distribution centers in Eritrea close to the Tigray border to assist families from north Tigray, while south Tigray was serviced through Korem and occasionally Maichew. Central Tigray was supplied by the airlift operation to Makele.
c. Wello
Despite fears for the northern part of this region due to frequent interruption of relief distributions because of security problems and shortage of trucks, nutritional status of the region, as a whole, remained fairly stable through 1988, even though actual coverage against targets averaged only 60 percent. Pockets of malnutrition, however, where distribution was sporadic and access to hinterland very limited, continued to be of concern right through 1988.
d. Hararghe
Serious disruption of the food pipeline into Hararghe region because of limited rail delivery problems from Djibouti and disagreements between the relief agencies and the local authorities as to areas and beneficiaries to be assisted led to reduction in beneficiary and ration levels during a large part of the year. RRC had originally estimated the drought-affected population as 925,000 including 477,470 in the highland areas. CARE's minimum estimate of population it needed to cover in the highlands was 345,000, expected to increase to 500,000 or 600,000. They needed 85,000 MT to cover this need. In April 1988 the Hararghe Catholic Secretariat mounted a program to assist in the area and at the same time CARE pressed local authorities to allow them to increase beneficiary levels. In July, the NGOs were given permission to increase beneficiaries in all areas except Garamulet and Habro, two of the worst affected areas. CARE again pressed for permission to increase distributions in those seriously affected areas and at the end of July permission was granted to also increase in these two areas. Unfortunately, a series of logistical log jams consistently interfered with delivery of the required commodities even after recipient numbers and areas were agreed to. Total CARE distributions for the year were only 39,683 MT. Nutrition levels finally stabilized late in 1988.
e. Showa
Food distribution continued through most of the year in all eight drought affected areas of the region, although there was some disruption to the Southern Baptist Mission program because of flooding and bridge damage. Despite these problems overall food distribution was
52 good, and although the nutritional status of the region showed traditional hungry season fluctuations, the situation remained relatively stable, even though total coverage probably never reached a higher than 80 percent level.
f. Gondar
Although the original RRC estimates of the affected population in this region were around 292,000, by February 1988 the number of people needing assistance had risen to over 500,000. Field reports indicated that the lowland areas in particular were experiencing serious food shortages and this, coupled with security problems and breaks in the food pipeline, led to increased concern for the region.
As mentioned, the US-supported NGOs should be submitting their distribution reports for the year shortly, which should give a clearer picture of how much of target coverage was achieved.
7. Some problems which constrained US food distributions during the 1988 Emergency Program
a. Identification of Beneficiary Numbers and Locations
At the local level problems of coordination sometimes occurred. After the 1984-85 disaster, the Ethiopian government set up regional and local Disaster Prevention Committees, composed of representatives from Farmer Associations, the government, and the RRC to coordinate the members' efforts and to work with local NGOs in determining beneficiaries and needs. While these committees functioned smoothly in many places, some committees and NGOs disagreed on the number, identity and location of beneficiaries, which interfered with timely and appropriate aid to the at-risk people in areas such as Ajibar in Wello, Yifat and Timuga woredas in Shewa and Garamuleta and Habro in Hararghe. USAID assisted where it could in resolving such impediments to cooperation and insuring that the most at risk populations were identified and reached. Another reason all at risk people were not reached sprang from the RRC's responsibility for assigning NGOs to certain areas of operation. The areas not covered by the NGOs, sometimes the remotest and most inaccessible, were left for the RRC.
CARE had continuing difficulty in Hararghe reaching agreement with the RRC on the levels and areas of beneficiaries. When FHI had to replace the ICRC in Gayint in Gonder, where some deaths and population movements had already been reported, the exchange was not well coordinated among the NGOs and the RRC. Likewise, because of the government's and RRC's inability to agree, Libo woreda, to the west of Gayint was never assigned to an NGO and as a result suffered more malnutrition than Gayint and some people moved from Libo to Gayint in search of food. (This information is based solely on reported observations, since no surveys were made in unassigned areas.) Because of disagreements among political authorities and the RRC, SAVE/UK was
53 not allowed to distribute in the hard hit Rayna and Kobo awradjas in Wello between May and October 1988 or later. Thus, in several instances, the GPDRE's inflexibility about increasing their original estimates of beneficiaries created serious problems.
b. Logistical problems
The civil conflict in the north and the attendant attacks on relief convoys seriously affected Ethiopia's limited logistical capability--one functioning rail line, access to only three ports, insufficient and low grade road network, and less than inadequate trucking capacity--and made it impossible for donors to implement a relief program of the magnitude needed without many extraordinary interventions, such as the massive airlift operated during the whole course of Lhe emergency effort. Beside the massive problems in the north, the Djibouti port and railroad operation presented a problem for CARE in Hararghe.
Djibouti port performance was disappointing. While rail offtake had started at an efficient level, with 40 to 50 wagons a day arriving in Dire Dawa, the situation soon changed to 5 wagons a day, then 10 a week. In December only about 1,000 MT per week were being delivered, with 17,000 tons in port. French flour which arrived was given priority and further delayed the clearing of the port. Visits by the USAID Food for Peace Officer found abysmal storage conditions. Efforts to clean up the port and to clear all US commodities took over six months. USAID as a last resort had requested money from OFDA to transport commodities by truck either from Assab or from Djibouti. A grant was made, but by that tie the port had finally cleared.
In late April 1988 11,200 MT of PL480 wheat which was railed to Dire Dawa in May/June and begun to be distributed was inspected by the health authorities and quarantined and an embargo placid on the balance of 5,500 MT in Djibouti. Samples of the wheat were sent to Washington and analyzed by USDA. In the meantime another shipment of 10,000 MT arrived and was again quarantined. Reason for the quarantine was a weed seed unknown in Ethiopia. USDA experts visited Ethiopia to negotiate inspection standards for foreign matter, but there has been no official agreement in writing to standards negotiated between USDA and the Ethiopian Grain Authority. This created further problems in that the Food Security Reserve in the absence of such agreed-to standards, is refusing to accept US grain as pay-backs for loans. USAID has put a "grain embargo" on the shipment of any US grain into Ethiopia until this matter is settled, which should be shortly.
In mid-June 5,000 tons of French donated wheat flour arrived in Djibouti followed by an additional 5,000 tons at the end of June. When this flour arrived, there were 30,863 tons of food aid commodities in port, of which 22,553 were consigned to CARE. The French wheat flour, assigned to the Catholic Secretariat, was given preference over all
54 other commodities. From June 25 until August 12, the flour was railed to Dire Dawa and not one bag of CARE's grain was transhipped. As CARE's monthly requirement for its relief program was 6,250 tons of grain, the program was severely disrupted. As a result nutritional status in certain areas, particularly in Garamuleta and Habro, where less than 50 percent of the targeted population received grain during July and August severely deteriorated; reports were received of people in Habro consuming grass and other vegetation due to the shortage of food; food for work activities were suspended and CARE commodities in Djibouti were in danger of spoilage and infestation. CARE even tried to help by off loading and transporting 3,700 tons of the flour to speed up operations. A strong letter to the French Ambassador regarding this situation resulted in a transfer of 1,500 MT of the flour to CARE for its operations and, most importantly, the USAID Food for Peace Officer asked the British for grain in Assab which had originally been intended for FHI, but was not needed on an urgent basis. The British responded promptly and transferred 8,000 MT of grain to CARE and arranged and paid for the trucking. This saved the program and the area.
8. Donor coordination
Donor coordination in Ethiopia, beginning with the 1984-85 drought relief effort, has been extremely cooperative and efficient. In January of 1987 the UN Emergency Prevention and Preparedness Group (EPPG) was established to replace the Office for Emergency Operations in Ethiopia which was opened in November of 1984. EPPG is chaired by the Secretary General's Special Representative. Members include representatives from UNDP, WFP, UNICEF, FAO, WHO, UNDRO, UNHCR, the World Bank and other UN agencies actively involved in emergency relief, prevention and preparedness. Its role is to coordinate relief and recovery efforts among the UN community and to support the RRC in its efforts to coordinate relief, prevention and preparedness activities. information. It meets biweekly.
An Informal Bilateral Donor Group, which was organized originally in 1985, made up of all donor country representatives in Ethiopia and representatives of the CRDA, meets monthly to discuss situation reports, food pledges and responses to Government of Ethiopia appeals. This has always been an important forum for discussion of all issues concerning individual donor countrier and for the exchange of information on policy and programs. The US has always played an active role in this group.
In order to facilitate the efficient shipment of food and non-food items into Ethiopia, the World Food Program (WFP) convenes a weekly shipping meeting to review shipment schedules. It is attended by bilateral donors and the CRDA. Attempts are continually made at these meetings to schedule relief shipments to avoid port congestion, with
55 varying results, as many bilateral and multilateral donors have little control over their shipping schedules. However, it is a vital technical committee for the donors. WFP also publishes weekly shipping schedules for all donors.
Christian Relief and Development Association (CRDA), which was established in 1973, was formed to bring together churches, Christian groups and agencies involved in relief and development programs. CRDA meets monthly and serves as a clearing house and information sharing group for its 60 members.
The international agencies, donors and NGOs all had organizations which coordinated their responses to the 1988 emergency. These mechanisms functioned effectively in most cases, but most groups do not include any Ethiopian government representation. When government representatives are invited we understand that the fora often lose their spontaneity of exchange. On the local level the coordination with the regional and local governments, the RRC and the NGO is often lacking or poor. A correct model was Wello where the local RRC representative called monthly meetings of the local administrators and the relief agencies to discuss all problems and needs and to seek solutions. This model should be supported by RRC and the donors and replicated in the other regions.
E. Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Conclusions
o The decision to phase down the USAID mission and US-assisted voluntary agency programs was too precipitous.
o The early US response in 1987 enabled on-the ground NGOs to begin implementing famine relief programs before extreme levels of malnutrition become widespread.
0 Even though donated food arrived as promptly as possible, it was food already in the pipeline and in the Food Security Reserve which could be used immediately which was the first deterrent of famine.
o Early approval and shipment resulted in at least a partial avoidance of port buildup.
o The US achieved wide coverage of the drought affected areas through the NGOs.
o The transport network which had deteriorated, was improved greatly by the donors, but is still inadequate to meet the needs of a major disaster.
56 0 While distribution targets were not achieved totally, coverage was good enough to avert famine.
0 Coordination at the local level was not always smooth or successful and in some cases, such as Hararghe, had a direct adverse impact on populations in need.
o Djibouti port and railroad continue to present serious problems for user agencies.
o Donor coordination continued to operate well and cooperation among the myriad donors, relief agencies and international organizations contributed to the success of the 1988 drought relief effort.
2. Recommendations
o A.I.D. should maintain a staff in Ethiopia of sufficient size to efficiently manage the requirements of regular and emergency food programs. The staff should have the requisite skills to coordinate with international and governmental agencies, monitor early warning, calculate food need assessments, manage and help implement US assisted PVO programs and respond rapidly to emergency alerts and climatic and man-made disasters.
0 The US should support regular N60 programs targeted at drought preparedness and famine prevention. Programs should be located in the most drought-prone areas and should be of sufficient size to warrant adequate personnel, administrative and logistical infrastructure which can be mobilized for quick emergency response. Levels should be flexible and be based on sound proposals and correctly targeted populations. Capping of programs at 22,000 MT was, we believe, too arbitrary. Regular program proposals should be reviewed in a collaborative manner and judged on their individual content and merit. Indeed, avenues for expanded NGO responsibility should be explored to discover if there are ways the NGOs can assume some of the responsibilities now resting with the in-country AID staff. Present levels requested--38,000 MT--seem adequate to maintain an appropriate mix of drought preparedness and famine prevention interventions, while at the same time supporting NGO infrastructure maintenance and providing monetization tonnage at approximately a 40,000 MT level. At a 40,000 MT level, a pipeline at all time of 10,000 tons a quarter could provide a 300 gram/day supplemental ration for 370,000 beneficiaries for 90 days while an emergency response is
57 being mounted. This safety net will be needed for at least another two-three years, until recovery is further along. o The problem of the Djibouti port and railroad must be addressed. During both recent emergency programs the same problems existed and are sure to be present during the next. When food assistance is approved for the Hararghe area, grant funding must be included at the same time which can be used to truck commodities from Djibouti and/or Assab when the rail line from Djibouti ceases to operate efficiently or when Djibouti port becomes backlogged with shipments. We were informed that the NGOs involved have never requested this type of grant assistance. We urge the mission to discuss this problem with them at the earliest opportunity so that the Djibouti port/rail problem does not again impede delivery of badly needed emergency foods to recipients.
58 V. IMPACT OF THE EMERGENCY FOOD PROGRAM
A. Introduction
The impact of the 1987/88 Emergency Food Program can be seen in the way food distributions altered the situation which was developing before the Food Emergency Program was approved and implemented. In many food emergencies, the impact of a food program can only be judged indirectly, by looking at the components of the program important to achieving results, such as how precisely the people in need were targeted for the program, how well the ration provided was designed to meet the needs of the population at risk, and how effective was the coverage of the population at risk. In Ethiopia, on the other hand, the impact of the emergency on nutritional status was unusually well documented because of on-the-ground NGOs' extensive nutritional monitoring. The social situation was much less systematically monitored; nevertheless, sufficient evidence exists to detect increases and decreases in signs of social distress attributable to a food shortage. This chapter describes the farmers' situation during the growing food emergency in 1987 and examines intermediate indicators of project success: (1) targeting strategies; (2) ration size and composition; (3) the effective coverage of the population at risk. It then considers evidence of the direct impact of food relief on social disruption and nutritional status.
1. Existence of a serious emergency
Considerable evidence indicates that there was a food emergency which caused visible social disruption in late 1987 which grew more severe in early 1988. Questions have been raised by some: Was there a food emergency in 1987/88? Was the 'success' of the program as measured by quantifiable measures such as nutritional status really a false success because nutritional status was never threatened? Were no mass population movements registered because people had no reason to move? A close review of reports and cables and interviews with people who witnessed events in 1987/88 reveals that a serious food emergency had developed in many provinces during 1987 and 1988. These reports show the increasing frequency with which these signs were noticed and the growing numbers of people involved. They also show the precipitous rate at which this type of situation worsens, after one bad harvest many people were as destitute as they had been in 1984 after two years and four bad harvests. Once extensive food distribution began, the social and nutritional status ceased to deteriorate and in some cases improved after emergency aid was begun.
2. The context of the emergency
The impact of both the food emergency and the impact of the emergency intervention in 1987/88 must be viewed in the larger context of the poor climatic situation following 1982. The fragile state of peasants' household economies and their lack of resistance to food shortages in 1987/88 were a direct consequence of the series of disastrous events which unrolled after 1982.
59 By 1984/85 a large portion of the population was destitute. They had coped with famine as best they could using traditional famine coping mechanisms. Many people had consumed all their food stocks and seeds, expended all their material assets in order to buy food, had been eating the more dangerous famine foods, and had played out all their kin and other social relationships. Many of these people starved or died from famine-related illnesses due to camps/sanitation crowding. Others survived long enough to benefit from the 1984/86 emergency feeding program.
In their state of destitution a program of agricultural recovery, allowing farmers to grow a food crop to eat, was necessary before they could move off relief. Of course not everyone was totally destitute; people who had been better off or who had more social relations on which to draw survived the situation better, with perhaps some animals, some seeds or some tools. Although they too, could only survive during this period with emergency food aid.
"Famine coping mechanisms" are poorly named; many famine coping mechanisms are really "food stretching mechanisms". They allow people to stretch the amount of time they have food to eat beyond the time their food would have run out in normal circumstances. Stretching the time one can find some food to eat increases the probability of survival since chances become greater than some positive event (rain, emergency distribution) will occur to improve the food situation. But survival is not guaranteed; these mechanisms do not allow people to cope with or to master famine, only to stave off for a while its worst effects. At some point, if the famine continues long enough or is widespread enough, no one will be able to survive. Hence by the end of 1985 most people in famine-stricken areas had coped by extending their food stores as long as possible but had finally exhausted them.' Though it is probably impossible to learn the full truth about on-farm food stocks, witnesses interviewed are unanimous in saying that after 1984/85/86 no one in the famine areas had any food reserves left.
3. Famine recovery in 1986
With the first rains in 1986 farmers began their recovery. Those who still had or could acquire oxen and seeds were able to plow their usual hectarage. Some of those who received seeds and tools arranged to use oxen in exchange for a specified number of days' work and were able to cultivate as usual. Others could farm only the area they could work with the hand tools they received. Thus even if the 1986 harvest had been the best some farmers were farther along the road to recovery than others. The poor, the disadvantaged (elderly, female heads of households, the sick, etc.), and people in isolated regions who had received less aid, were in a much more fragile position than others.
'Famine coping mechanisms are poorly understood. They do, however, seem to vary by region; people from Tigray and Eritrea who were interviewed said, for example, that they did not eat Balanites aegyvtica as a famine food but that "people towards Sudan" did.
60 To recover fully the farmer needed to do many things: build up food reserves to last one crop year plus a surplus to fall back on if the next crop (or crops) fail; build up seed reserves; replace necessary farm implements; build up a livestock herd with oxen (or an ox), milk cows and some small stock to sell for cash. Without all these, "traditional coping mechanisms" cannot be used. By the end of 1986 very few farmers had achieved any of this. People's recovery was fragile and most lived in a state of food insecurity. This fragility was compounded by farmers' inability to move beyond a modest recovery because of government policies on taxation and grain levies. Farmers could not reinstate themselves by purchasing the items they needed since they rarely had any surplus to sell, small-scale industries and handicrafts had stagnated (Henze, p.7), and most drought-prone areas are not cash crops zones.
Most production systems in the drought-devastated regions of Ethiopia are very dependent on livestock, especially cattle for plowing and for milk products. In 1986 and 1987 some people began to reacquire livestock through traditional exchange channels or through purchases with surplus grain or income earned in other ways. For example, it appears that many people had been selling grain in order to replace 1984/85 livestock losses in Raya and Kobo (Wello). Since the belg and meher rains there were good, it was assumed these people had considerable food stocks. Food distribution began later than local conditions warranted since observers not realizing how much grain had been expended on livestock were skeptical that household food stocks were exhausted even though in September 1987 nutritional status had already dropped significantly from June 1987.
Even when families had a milk animal many households in drought prone areas were so close to the margin of being self-supporting that they had to sell their butter or the animals' offspring to buy food. Living on the margin of food insecurity was slowing the rate at which many households could recover.
The rate at which farming households could recuperate was also affected by administrative factors. Peasants must have some cash income for cash is essential in order to buy spices, salt, etc. In addition each January, just after the harvest they must also pay taxes. This timing guarantees the farmer will have some grain with which to pay but it also means he must sell more grain at a low price, since recently gathered grain is rushing into the market. The farmers in areas deemed "surplus producing" also lose part of their grain production to the AMC, the parastatal Agricultural Marketing Corporation. A grain quota is set and the FAs are responsible for filling it. FAs usually assess their members equal amounts, independent of whether a particular farmer's yield has been high or low. With such a system some farmers are likely to have little to store or perhaps little to eat. It is evident that in 1986 and 1987 farmers faced innumerable obstacles to recovery inherent in their perilous condition of marginal sufficiency and in the politico economic situation.
61 While 1986 was supposed to be a year of recovery after the famine, the rates of recovery were not uniform. Some peasants' situation started to improve but regeneration was not as fast nor did it go as far as many observers assumed. The main rains in 1986 started late in drought prone regions. They were erratic and the harvest was good in some regions only and just adequate in others. According to the UNEPPG Famine Fact Sheet, 1988, given all the factors creating Ethiopia's current vulnerability to famine, "any appreciable aberration in rainfall results in 10 percent to 15 percent of the rural population being placed immediately and directly at risk of starvation". The FAO and RRC claimed that peasant production was down 11 percent; USAID accepted the 1986/87 peasant production at 7 percent below normal. A.I.D concluded that "production remains abnormally low in the peasant sector for essentially emergency [i.e. weather, pests] reasons (Cable # 00407, 02 Feb. 1987). The overall crop figures appeared normal, however, because of increased production in the state sector and there are no indications that any one was alarmed. But events were not favoring any number of peasants' efforts to make a recovery.
A few populations such as the Oromo in Showa never went off emergency relief. Others, for example the inhabitants of Raya and Kobo awrajas in Wello, had finished their stocks by 1987. In Lasta (Wello) the 1986/87 crop was so subnormal that in 1987 people had no food and were selling what assets they had acquired. Thus in 1986 in what was generally reported as being a good harvest year some farmers were already in need of food aid and many had barely begun to recover from 1984/85.
Then the belg rains again failed or were pcor in 1987 in parts of the drought-prone areas, next the meher and then belg of 1988. Without food reserves lots of people had to sell the assets they had managed to acquire and turn again to other famine coping mechanisms. Unfortunately the government had made it difficult or impossible to use some of these mechanisms. By nationalizing cash crop industries such as coffee the government cut off a source of off-season employment as day laborers for men from Showa, Wello and other northern areas. The government forbade any unapproved movements over provincial borders, making it illegal for people to earn cash to buy food by selling their labor, livestock or assets in better markets in other provinces. Moving livestock over borders without a permit was also banned so that many farmers were unable to park some of their animals with kin or acquaintances in less hard-hit regions. Private cereal movements over borders, which might have shaved the food deficit, were not allowed.
4. The emerging crisis in 1987
With Peasant households living in food insecurity and without many coping mechanisms even one bad rain was devastating. By the middle of 1987 some parts of northern Ethiopia were in a food crisis. The food crisis is evinced by the behavior of some populations, which showed they were under stress: distress sales and population movements.
62 a. Sales
Firewood and charcoal sales were reported on the rise. No noticeable asset sales were reported but that is not surprising considering that probably few people had any assets to sell. In August 1987 grain prices in general were rising and livestock prices at places like Korem (Showa) were falling as people sold animals to buy grain.
b. Population movements
In Wello, Gondar, Showa and Tigray a serious food crisis was developing by August 1987. In Wello some people in the environs of Sekota began moving towards Korem in August 1987. SAVE the Children Fund/UK noted "Reports of unusual (i.e. prompted by hardship and/or poor harvest prospects) migration from 11 woredas [of Wello] during October. In almost every case the migrants were farmers and young men seeking employment in other awrajas or regions; only the migrants entering Korem from Sekota had taken their families with them. Although our information is not detailed it seems that with the exception of the Sekota-Korem movement the numbers of migrants were small or moderate in October. (Summary Report, December 1987.)
By November Korem had about 10,000 people camped in the area. In Tigray in November people were already on the move, 7,000 people had moved into N. Gondar from Tigray and Eritrea and the number was rising. The harvest in Tigray and in Eritrea was projected to last, at the latest, through March 1)88. In Gondar in November 1987, 5-6,000 people from Wello were camped at Ibnet, a famine camp in 1984/86. USAID cabled Washington (04807, 17 Nov. 1987) that the ICRC thinks there were "tens of thousands" of people around Ibnet, having made a 10 day walk over rough terrain from Sekota in Wello. They were said to be in very poor condition, especially the children. Although no numbers were confirmed, clearly something was going on. In the region of Gayint (S. Gondar) a few hundred people had come from Wello, where the Ministry of Agriculture was estimating 24,000 to be at risk.
In December the lowlands of Wello were in the worst shape. In Wag, Lasta, and Raya/Kobo livestock prices were down, especially in Korem. Migrants were still coming into Korem from Sekota. Other people were moving into Gayint and from there to Gojam in search of employment. The government was trying to enforce its policy of no movement across provincial movements and keeping people out of Gayint. In Showa the lowland areas had already run out of food; 88 percent of 3 awrajas were without food. The highlands had food to last only until April.
B. The Social Impact of Emergency Food Distribution
1. Chronological overview
By the beginning of 1988 the social stresses the food shortage was causing had become evident. At the same time the RRC and NGOs had geared up and were distributing food in many of the targeted regions. Many people in Tigray were in distress but the population movements were transformed where emergency food distributions were being made into
63 trips to feeding centers for rations. More Tigraens than expected were turning up for food but they took their food and vent home. The ICRC in Tigray was trying to distribute food in Tigray as close to people as they could to keep people from moving into Sudan or from forming camps near distribution centers. They appear to have succeeded; close monitoring showed that very few people moved as refugees into Sudan.
Where food distribution encountered problems or delays population movements and camp formation continued. In Wello thousands of Tigraens came to centers for food; unfortunately the Wello administration would not let Oxfam feed Tigrans in Wello. Food was delayed in reaching Korem, where 10-15,000 people were waiting in January.
In February more people in need were registered as beneficiaries and received food. But isolated areas were still under stress. In February, 1988, distribution started in Gondar and FHI targeted the Gayint region for feeding. In Wello 224,000 people were registered as beneficiaries, a number which was to rise to 336,000 in May. People in need were so badly off they began leaving S. Wello for neighboring but isolated Merhabete even though people there had no stored food and were eating grass and roots. There was no migration of people from Merhabete, which SIM managed to supply by air. Charcoal and firewood sales were reported everywhere as people tried to earn money for food.
By March, food distributions were well underway. People in need were turning to distribution agencies for food. In Wello, Farmer Associations claiming themselves to be in crisis asked to be enrolled as beneficiaries, for example. In Showa, SAVE/USA and the local authorities were fighting over beneficiary numbers so distributions were down, but even so there was no more population movement.
With food distributions, people began to gain control of the situation. In April Showa's status was stable except for Omosheleko where beneficiary levels had been set too low and people's health was reported to be deteriorating. People were walking 3 hours up from the lowlands to get food and returning home. People there had formerly migrated to work as laborers but were now forbidden to do so; without food distribution they would have had few means for coping. In Tigray and Eritrea there were now 30,000 displaced persons to be fed. In Gondar people had food except for inaccessible Gayint and neighboring Libo which, when ICRC was expelled, was not reassigned. People started leaving Libo for Gayint. Lasta, Raya and Kobo were getting food and as a result people did not migrate to Sudan. In Hararghe province CARE had 60 percent of its beneficiaries doing Food For Work.
By May, most areas appeared stable. Reports indicate the situation in Gayint was satisfactory but it was hard to make deliveries to the area. In Showa the food distribution network was stretched to the maximum but the situation was stable. In Hararghe the Djibouti railway was at last bringing in some food. No population movements were signaled.
64 By midyear 1988, the social disruption had ceased to increase and ag1icultural recovery activities were begun for the meher rains. In June, the beginning of the farming season, NGOs did agricultural recovery distributions of seeds and tools. There were no population movements but in Wello beneficiary lists grew. In south Tigray distribution had been made to 61,000 in May but it stopped in June for security reasons. With rain, distribution became more and more difficult. Wello and Gondar's nutritional status was slipping but satisfactory, except in Gayint (Gondar) where it dropped dramatically.
As of mid-1988, food distribution appears to have steadied nutritional status just as it had stopped most population movements in February and March, 1988 (except for areas not included in distributions or disrupted by conflict). By September 1988 most NGOs were meeting their beneficiary targets or even removing people no longer in need.
The last months of 1988 were stable and in many areas people had a good harvest at last. But some areas in distress were not so fortunate. The highlands of N. Showa lost much barley and many animals to cold rains and frost and parts of Wello gathered only enough cereal for 4-5 months of 1988-89. In parts of Gondar crops were damaged and so emergency feeding continued; Gondar is likely to be in deficit in 1989. Illnesses such as malaria, TB and meningitis are also rampant in some parts of Wello, Tigray and Eritrea. People in these districts where misfortune continues are still in a very unstable position.
Throughout the areas scourged in 1987/88 farmers are still in Perilous condition. Either they have never really recovered from 1984/85 or have lost in 1988 most of what they had regained. Even people who had a good harvest are far from a full recovery. They are in the same state that many were in 1986 - one good harvest but nothing else to depend on if the next one fails.
2. Impact on Pastoralists
Information about the effects of 1987-88 drought on pastoralists in Ethiopia is too skimpy to give much of a picture. Both nomads and semi-nomads suffered disastrous livestock losses in 1984/85. The extent to which nomads rebuilt their herds before 1987 is unknown, but a plague of locusts in the west in 1986 wiped out acacia trees as fodder for camels of the Afar in the region. They were slowly rebuilding their herds, some by farming, some by smuggling contraband, some by becoming clients of nearby Oromo.
By May of 1987 there was no pasturage in Showa and the Afar had begun unusual movements in search of food. They started to receive emergency rations but by October 1988 some Afar had left distribution centers to graze their cattle in areas where the meher rains had fallen.
The semi-sedentary Oromo had some cattle in 1987 but they suffered from lack of grain from early 1987 on and were still being given emergency rations in 1989. The Ogaden region had poor rainfall in 1987/88 and in some areas pasture and water dried up and pastoralists moved off their usual paths to feed their animals as early as September,
65 1987. Unfortunately, the meher rains in parts of the Ogaden also failed again in 1988 and pastoralists have moved out from those areas. In Sidamo region, which was not badly afflicted by a lack of rainfall in 1987 or 1988, pastoralists have marginally recovered.
C. Targeting Populations
1. Defining the population at risk: Strategic Decisions
Targeted Populations were more and more specifically defined as the emergency grew. In general, parties making targeting decisions attempted to define, as precisely as possible, the at-risk population. They did this through a series, first of strategic decisions about location and size and, then, as precise information from the strategically targeted area became available, making continuous tactical decisions about beneficiary lists, location of food distribution centers and ration size.
After the RRC issued its strategic alert in August 1987 indicating the approximate magnitude of a coming food emergency it began to identify provinces in trouble and gross numbers of people at risk. It also requested NGOs already operating in the country to take charge of relief operations in certain areas, most often where the NGO was already working, and reviewed NGO proposals for action. NGOs and their donors also made strategic decisions about quantities of food and their logistical ability to distribute.
2. Tactical decisions
Many other tactical decisions about targeting were made among the RRC. the NGOs and the local and regional Natural Disaster Prevention Committees as 1987 turned in to 1988. Surveys on at-risk areas were carried out and beneficiary lists were drawn up. As NGOs and the RRC gathered more information about the situation on the ground they were able to make tactical decisions about targeting different populations. CARE/USA updated its estimates of people at-risk in their areas in September and December 1987 as it had more accurate estimates of crop losses and expanded its target area after December 1987. FHI was initially given parts of Showa and Gondar to cover. But as the harvest season progressed Showa appeared to have a normal subsistence harvest, though on the low side, and Gondar much worse than predicted, so FHI shifted its food and logistical capability to Gondar to meet the need. As 1988 progressed the NGOs continued to try targeting the at-risk population more and more precisely, by expanding the lists as more people in need came in or contracting them by removing people without need. SAVE/UK, for example, did baseline nutritional studies on beneficiaries on the first day of a distribution and in June of 1988 it did other surveys and removed some people from the lists. As the situation changed because more farmers and pastoralists ran out of food and NGO's food supplies did or did not arrive, they continued to make tactical decisions about targeting. The RRC made attempts around April 1988 to adjust NGOs operations more closely to their figures on the population at risk, asking FHI to take on inaccessible Gayint in Gondar.
66 The RRC, NDPC and NGOs did not always agree on beneficiary lists or ration size in a few places such as Yifat and Timuga in Showa province, or Omosheleko in Southern Showa (where only 8,210 beneficiaries were approved by the local authorities out of 24,000 people estimated by FHI) and Habro, Jijiga and elsewhere in Hararghe. This led to inadequate food supplies delivered and disruption of aid to needy people. Some of these problems, as with SAVE/USA in Showa were resolved. Others such as CARE's distribution difficulties in parts of Hararghe, continued even into the fall of 1988.
Groups distributing emergency food aid in 1987/88 made considerable efforts to refine their beneficiary listings of the target population as the numbers of people in need swelled or shrank. The RRC's and FHI's initial assessments for people at risk in Gondar were in agreement. But FHI decided their figures were based on an incorrect assumption that people had enough food to last them for some time. So, while the RRC had calculated the food requirements on the basis of a full ration for a full year FHI had to give less than the full ration for less than a full year in order to cover the needy with the amount of food at its disposal.
NGOs also tried to catch areas which had slipped past the first tactical efforts to target populations. The SAVE/UK Nutritional Surveillance System was effective in identifying areas missed in the initial assessment. The Bcrena area, for example, was not at first signaled as being a region in difficulty and the situation there had deteriorated before anyone realized there was a problem and the RRC stepped in. Libo awraja, at first serviced by ICRC, was not reassigned after ICRC was expelled in April 1988. Libo, some feel, suffered even more malnutrition than neighboring and inaccessible Gayint where nutritional levels remained a matter of concern till September 1988. Libo got only a little food which trickled over the border.
3. Targeting northern beneficiaries
Targeting beneficiaries in the far north involved different problems. The harvest in some parts of Eritrea was not bad, although some estimators believe that the RRC figure of 2 million at risk in Eritrea and Tigray was too low. Civil conflict made it difficult for farmers to sow and harvest in many areas during 1987/88 even though the rains in many parts were good. In March/April 1988 the military situation altered drastically and many people were either cut off from the centers from which they had been receiving aid or became displaced persons. In April 1988 the GPDRE demanded that all expatriate personnel of NGOs and international organizations withdraw from the conflict zone. With their departure information about the population at risk became even more difficult to gather. Only after much donor pressure did the GPDRE agree to have a minimal monitoring capacity in the north. In fact, despite considerable efforts on everyone's part since 1984, it has been impossible to pin down beneficiary numbers. (UN preliminary figures show a high of 1,713,371 beneficiaries in Eritrea and 595,351 in Tigray.) Clearly there was a need for food but how well the population was targeted or how effective was the coverage cannot be known.
67 4. Beneficiaries reached
Preliminary estimates of coverage during the 1987/88 emergency based on WFP/EPPG reports indicate that approximately sixty-four percent of the planned beneficiaries were reached during 1988. However, the numbers of total beneficiary reached had.not been finalized by either the RRC or the NGOs at the time this report was written. The RRC initially identified the population at-risk at 5.2 million and indicated that 1,046,71.9 metric tons of food were required to meet the need. From food arrivals in FY 88 and stocks remaining, one can calculate that approximately sixty-percent of the planned food distribution actually occurred. By April 1989, the USAID Mission should ensure that it has commodity status and Recipient Reports fromi ail NGOs receiving US emergency food aid. Conclusions can then can be reached on how well the U.S.-supported NGOs reached their coverage objectives.
From preliminary figures, it appears coverage was skewed--it was excellent in some areas and poor in a few others. Despite increasing security problems in Eritrea it looked as if food distribution remained high throughout the year. The JRP, using its Eritrean Catholic Secretariat partner, was able to distribute food in 27 out of 37 established sites. The RRC reports that average monthly beneficiary levels through the year were 1.11 million or 100 percent of planned coverage. In Tigray, however, coverage declined steadily over CY 1988. RRC estimates that the average beneficiary coverage per month during 1988 was 674,280 (65 percent planned). However, this coverage included a January to June monthly average of 787,730, down to 334,000 in July, and averaging 500,000 in August through November and 152,000 in December. JRP reported that they reached 79 percent of their Tigray targeted beneficiaries in January; 69 percent in March, 55 percent in July and 38 percent in December. They also reported having to reduce food rations to reach even this level of beneficiaries. There are other examples of this.
o WFP/EPPG figures reveal that average monthly beneficiary coverage in Gondar (361,750 beneficiaries) was almost 100 percent of planned coverage. However within Gondar, there were serious logistical problems in reaching populations in Gayint particularly during the rainy seasons which resulted in serious declines in nutritional status. In July and August tonnage of food distributed in Gayint decreased by about 80 percent. Rations were also reduced here to expand the numbers of people receiving any food at all.
o Wello had reasonably good coverage, reaching almost 80% of planned coverage by August 1988. However, distribution in Wag had stopped completely in February 1988 due to security problems. Distribution in Raya and Kobo was only 50% of the total food needed between January and July 1988; this doubled in August when SAVE (UK) expanded into these areas.
68 o Hararghe was the one area, besides Tigray, where coverage was extremely inadequate during the emergency period. The affected population was initially estimated at 925,400 and at no time during the emergency was more than 50 percent of this number reached. During January-June 1988, only 30-40 percent of the target group was being reached.
Flexibility on the part of the PVOs helped to mitigate the negative effects of some of these probletas. When faced with limited food in a particular area, PVOs reduced rations and expanded the numbers they were able to reach with the food available. The recipients' ability to travel to the distribution site and transport rations also affected real coverage. Usually it is the poorest, those without pack animals, who do not receive food because they are too weak to walk long distances and carry food back home. SAVE (UK) made an all-out effort to ensure that no people would have to travel more than one-half day. They seem to have been successful. Other NGOs, like WVRO, during the course of the year opened more remote sites when they realized people were walking more than five days. It was reported that people from Wag who walked to Korem actually had finished their rations before they returned home. This seems to have been an exception this time and the efforts of the NGOs and RRC to get the food out, limit walking time, and do away with the need for camps was largely successful.
Registration and distribution protocols also influenced who received food. NGOs soon realized that insisting that all members of a family come in and be registered may be an excellent accountability procedure but may discourage groups like the Afars from initial registration. Also some NGOs with the best of intentions insisted that all members of a household receiving food had to come each month to receive the food and participate in weighing sessions. For families, having to walk through rugged terrain for half a day or more carrying three to five children was impossible. Many NGOs did adjust distribution procedures and required only one representative from a household to come and receive the food.
Prepositioning large supplies of food in the more hard-to reach places would have reduced disruptions in food distributions and the need for air service in many locales. Inadequate local stores and initial lack of vehicles made this very difficult.
D. Rations
Dr. Phillip Nieburg, CDC Nutrition Division, carried out an in depth review of the emergency rations in a consultancy to the USAID Mission during the summer of 1988. There are several points in his report2 , as well as those identified by the evaluation Team, that should be emphasized:
'Report of a Nutrition and Health Consultancy to the Food for Peace Office, May 29 - June 17, 1988
69 o Nutritional quality of the rations varied substantially between NGOs. from 1186 calories to 2431 calories, with their protein quality varying even more. If the ration was intended as the sole source of calories, several NGOs would have been providing inadequate rations. However, since the target population was not in camps it was likely that they were obtaining some if not limited calories from other sources. Thus Dr. Nieburg concludes that "rations as currently distributed are apparently adequate for the existing situation."
o The major problem in the 1987/88 emergency seems to have been ration dilution because a household ration based on five people per household was used. Since many families have more than five members, rations were diluted within the family. It was reported by several NGO's that when faced with a food shortage, some population groups reduce the food first for the youngest children, while others like the pastoralists in Ogden, keep the share of food for the youngest child while reducing the food for the older children. Even more serious dilution occurred in areas where the number of beneficiaries was underestimated. NGOs did the best they could by halving or reducing rations to extend the food they had. This was the case with FHI in Gondar and JRP in the North.
o Supplementary foods, e.g., NFDM and blended foods like ICSM. were in short supply during 1988. The new RRC guidelines state that protein is an essential nutrient needed for the growth and maintenance of the human body and that "at least 12 percent of the total K cals in the ration should come from protein ". If these guidelines are used to assess the adequacy of the emergency ration, then the rations of three NGOs using PL480 foods would have been inadequate.
o All rations were inadequate in Vitamins A and C: only two NGOs distributed Vitamin A supplements.
E. The Nutritional Impact of Emergency Food Distribution3
1. Overview
Substantial evidence indicates that the level and flow of food aid during CY 1988 averted widespread nutritional deterioration in many parts of Ethiopia. Continual nutritional surveillance during the drought period in Wello, Showa, and North Sidamo reveal that nutritional status in the most drought-affected areas remained good to satisfactory. In fact, in a few areas of North Showa where food distribution began
'This assessment does not include Eritrea or Tigray because of very limited access to nutritional, morbidity or mortality data.
70 early in CY 1988, nutritional status was actually better than in the same period in CY 1987.
The worst nutritional situation where data is available appeared in Hararghe, due to disputes over the numbers of people to be assisted and problems with late distribution and interruptions in food aid. In a few other pocket areas, e.g. in Merhabete, and Gayint, where food aid began late and/or was interrupted due to security problems or inaccessibility, nutritional status did begin to deteriorate and hunger was reported. When this type of situation was identified there were major efforts by NGOs, donor organizations and the RRC to target more food to these areas or to use alternative transportation. In most of these cases additional food was distributed and nutritional status then appears to have improved.
2. Eritrea and Tigray
There has been no systematic surveillance of nutritional status in these regions. However, the JRP is monitoring nutritional status of its beneficiary population under 5 years of age. Data from five distribution sites in Tigray on 15,000-20,000 children, using weight and height measurements shows significant numbers of children below 80 percent between April and November 1988 ranging from 6.7 to 14.4 percent.
Given the food shortage situation in these areas, security problems and long distances from distribution sites, these numbers may actually reflect a situation better than expected which is still poor to marginally satisfactory. Recent reports (March 1989) suggest that there is increasing evidence of severe malnutrition including marasmus in Eastern Tigray. Malaria is rapidly becoming a serious problem and drugs are not available. Together with the malnutrition, mortality would be expected to increase.
3. Mortality
Information on mortality was not collected systematically during this drought period; however discussions with NGOs, RRC, and UNICEF all confirm that in their areas there were virtually no reported deaths in CY 1988 due to starvation or associated with increased malnutrition. There were an increased number of reported deaths due to malaria in 1988 and meningitis in 1989. Health professionals believe these deaths were due to the absence of early diagnosis and proper treatment rather than associated with malnutrition. There are no official reports of increased morbidity, eg, diarrhea or measles due to the drought situation and related nutritional declines. Rowever it is likely that in those few areas where nutritional status severely deteriorated increased morbidity did occur.
71 4. Chronic malnutrition and other underlying problems
The "normal" nutritional situation in Ethiopia reflects seriously inadequate food consumption, particularly during the preharvest period, persistent infectious diseases, and cultural practices that particularly affect the youngest age group.
a. Chronic malnutrition
Chronic malnutrition continues to be a serious problem throughout Ethiopia. Given rapid population growth of 2.9 percent per annum and decreasing food productivity, per capita domestic food production has decreased by about 22 percent in the last decade. Estimates of average calorie availability (based on domestic production, imports and food aid) are approximately 1770 calories per day, a level that is 10 percent below the WHO minimum survival level and 23 percent below WHO's recommended dietary allowances of 2300 calories. The 1988 World Bank Report, Challenge of Hunger in Africa estimates that 14.7 million Ethiopians do not have access to a minimum adequate diet.
There is also a seasonal malnutrition problem with nutritional status beginning to fall in June and July during the rainy season and into the preharvest period--October to November. Malnutrition may continue to fall in December during the harvest period when more energy is used in field work and less time given to child feeding. Studies suggest that consumption may be typically reduced by 20-50 percent at these times. In pastoral areas the pattern may be different, with malnutrition reaching its peak in February, particularly in Southern regions.
b. Infectious diseases
Infectious diseases also take their toll. Preschool children typically have 4-6 episodes of diarrhea per year. Respiratory infections strike viciously during the rainy seasons. These two problems along with malaria and measles together exacerbate poor nutritional status and contribute to the 144/1000 infant mortality rate and a child mortality rate of 236, which is the highest in the world. This means that fifty per cent of all deaths occur in children under five.
c. Social and cultural practices
Social and cultural practices also contribute to the nutrition problems, particularly of the youngest. Detrimental practices include late introduction of solid foods, absence of special weaning foods and infrequent feeding especially during harvest periods. Large scale iron, iodine and Vitamin A deficiency problems have also been identified.
5. Nutritional impact during drought
In 1987 and 1988 systematic collection of nutritional status data began throughout the drought-affected areas in Wello, Showa, North
72 Sidamo, West Arsi and Hararghe. SAVE/UK developed a two-tier data collection system based on longitudinal nutritional data collection and cluster sample surveys. Weight-for-length (WFL) measurements of children 70-110 cms are used to assess acute malnutrition expressed in per cent of reference values. The RRC has developed standards for interpretation of the data: Mean WFL% for a community is good 95 percent satisfactory, at 94-90 percent; poor at 89-85 percent; serious (emergency) at 85 percent or below. In order to assess the magnitude of the problem the proportion of children affected is used: proportion under 80 percent WFL is good at less than 5 percent, satisfactory at 6-10 percent; poor at 11-20 percent; serious at greater than 20 percent.
The RRC standard is used in this report's analysis of nutritional impact. Data from other NGOs were also used in the analysis although some may not be comparable to the SAVE/UK data, but their information is valuable in assessing the impact of particular projects. A working group on Nutritional Data in Early Warning and Relief, part of RRC, has developed a set of standards on Community Surveys on Nutritional Status in order to improve the comparability between NGO's data.
The nutritional effect expected of such a widespread and complete drought as in 1987/88 on the under-five population (70-110 cm) would be to see a serious decline in nutritional status, beginning in January 1988 and becoming critical by April or May. If such a decline was not seen, then the premise is that the relief food has had an impact.
a. Wello
Wello was one of the most drought-affected areas, where serious problems were anticipated beginning as early as January 1988. Because of extensive coverage in that area by many NGOs and prepositioning of food, nutritional status for surveyed areas remained satisfactory. During 1988, not one of the SAVE (UK) cluster surveys
showed that the mean WFL% dropped below 90 percent and only two showed in October and November 1988 more than 5 percent of the population under 80 percent WFL. During the same time in 1987, mean WFL was only about 3 percent higher for the same populations.
There were pockets of problems in Wello during the year. Habru Awraja was described as "very worrisome," with nutritional status dropping dramatically in June 1988. Wag and Lasta Awrajas were affected by security problems that obstructed food arrivals. Populations there could have developed serious nutritional problems but food distributions were started in Korem and people went there to obtain food. This appears to have mitigated any serious declines in nutritional status in those areas.
Figure 3 shows Nutritional Status and trends based on SAVE (UK) Cluster Survey data from January 1987 to November 1988 in Wello. Although on the average Mean WFL was lower in 1988 than in 1987, the cluster surveys reveal that nutritional status remained satisfactory in all of the surveyed drought-affected areas.
73 WOLLO
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ETHIOPIAN DROUGHT EVALUATION Figure 3: Nutritional Status Trends, Wollo, 1987-88 b. Northern Showa
In Northern Showa, in Yifat and Timuga, Save the Children (US) has nutritional data for 64 kebeles (Communities) from November 1987 to December 1988. Save the Children (US) which has an extensive health program in 30 of the Kebeles, began to expand their food distribution in November 1987. The mean percent WFL was consistently high for all communities (91-98) from November 1987 through November 1988. There were only 2 kebeles that were under 90 percent at any time. The number of children below 80 percent actually decreased in many of the communities throughout the year. Save the Children(US) program also brought in measles vaccines into their area and immunization coverage reached 35-40 percent. Not one child between one and five years of age had measles during the drought while other areas outside of the SAVE area had outbreaks of measles. (See Figure 4.)
Although for the most part nutritional status remained satisfactory to good in the areas of Showa surveyed in the later half of 1988, Merhabete became a problem area, with nutritional status declining significantly through mid 1988. Again these trends seem to indicate the critical need for ford aid during this period and the sensitive response of nutritional status to late arrivals or interruptions of food aid. The main bridge which led into the area broke in July and no trucks had access to the area, interrupting food distributions for five weeks. The August 1988 SAVE (UK) report said "If no solution is possible and inadequate food reaches the awraja, deterioration in nutritional status is expected be.Eore the harvest in November and December since no crop will be harvested until then and livestock are seriously depleted in numbers so will not be able to provide a buffer through sale". Beginning in September 1988 aircraft was used to bring in food for 6 centers in the area; however, landing became a problem. In October the bridge was fixed and food distribution continued. Nutritional status appeared to have stabilized in November 1988, although several individual sites were considered poor. Children in the Baptist Program in the area were consistently weighed, as weather permitted. Children whose weight fell below 75 percent WFL were then given two weeks of supplementary food and Vitamins. Medical follow-ups also occurred for all children whose weight fell less than 80 WFL percent.
c. Hararghe
Hararghe is a region that is usually not as drought affected as the more northern ones. However, the November 1988 RRC Food Supply Project report stated clearly that Hararghe was one of the most seriously affected regions by "climatic abnormality" in 1987. The entire maize crop was lost and sorghum substantially reduced. The RRC estimated that 925,400 people in this area would need assistance. Between December 1987 and February 1988 serious declines in nutritional status were seen in eight areas where SAVE/UK cluster surveys were carried out. In April the nutritional status of 26 out of 71 farmer's associations declined. Pastoralists in the Ogaden had lost a large number of livestock in May and massive relief would be necessary. Nomads in Jijiga already had began to migrate abnormally in search of water in September 1987.
75 Showa
96 Iv, enznoC Gishe
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ETHIOPIAN DROUGHT EVALUATION
]Figure 4: Nutritional Status Trends, Showa, 1987-88
76 The Save the Children April 1988 report emphatically stated that in Hararghe there was a need for urgent and repeated relief food targeting. In April the nutritional status of 18 of 68 farmer's associations surveyed were poor. Habro was of particular concern, with l..7 percent below 80 percent WFL. The situation in Garamuleta was very alarming, with 16.4 percent of its sample under 80 WFL in May 1988. Steep increases in prices of maize and sorghum were observed. Given these widespread and serious nutritional status declines and early Save the Children (UK) reports of projected food store depletions by November 1987 in Chercher and Jijiga, food aid deliveries and overall distribution were much too slow and levels too inadequate to address the serious food shortage problem. Efforts by the two agencies assisting the area to target correctly and to obtain additional food finally bore results late in the year and nutritional status responded almost immediately. By September mean WFL in all areas except Habro and Garamuleta had risen to satisfactory. In October 1988 Garamuleta reached a satisfactory nutrition 'evel. See Figure 5.
The Hararghe situation clearly points out that the food shortage situation in 1988 was critical and that without adequate quantities of food aid distributed early on in the drought/famine cycle nutritional status deteriorates quickly. Once the NGOs and the RRC agreed on the magnitude of the problem in the area and organizational and logistical difficulties lessened more food aid began to be distributed and nutritional status began to stabilize and improve.
CRS began its distribution in three awrajas, including Wabera, Harar-Zuria and Dire Dawa in April 1988 where nutritional status as defined by number of children under 80 percent weight for height was poor in the majority of sites. As the next three months would be even more difficult in terms of food shortages, one would expect to see a further decline. This did not happen and in fact nutritional status improved in ten out of 16 centers over the next three months. However for those children whose nutritional status fell to less than 80% WFL the probability of increased morbidity and risk of mortality increased substantially.
d. Gondar
In June 1988 Food for the Hungry reported that nutritional status was deteriorating significantly in Gayint. Thirteen per cent of children were under 80 percent WFL. Food distribution had been significantly lower than planned in the previous months due to difficulties in coordination and logistics. In May 1988 FHI hoped to transport 5,000 MTs but only delivered 3000 MTS. In June nutritional status had continued to decline in Gayint with 15 percent under 80 percent WFL. An air lift began to increase the amount of food available and FHI tried to increase distribution to address the serious nutritional situation. However, August and September brought serious rains that again obstructed food distribution. Finally, with a good harvest of teff in October 1988, nutritional status began improving.
77 HARARGHE
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ETHIOPIAN DROUGHT EVALUATION
Figure 5: Nutritional Status Trends, Hararghe, 1987-88
78 e. Summary of nutritional impact of food aid
Nutritional surveillance data collected by SAVE (UK) during the drought period (1987-1988) provides excellent information to evaluate the impact of the emergency food programs on nutritional status in all drought affected areas except for Eritrea and Tigray. Based on this information, it is evident that emergency feeding averted what could have been serious nutritional deterioration throughout all drought affected areas. In Wello and Northern Showa, where food was prepositioned and distributed early to over one million people before food supplies were totally depleted and population were in a weakened condition, nutritional status remained good throughout CY 1988. In a few pocket areas, where security problems and/or rough terrain interrupted food distribution, nutritional status did decline. When food aid resumed, nutritional status stabilized and improved.
Hararghe presents an unfortunate but clear picture of what happens when the population at-risk is sorely underestimated (by over 50 percent in some areas); where subsequent food distribution is inadequate in quantity; where distribution begins late; where NGO capacity was not matched to the difficulty of reaching remote and more inaccessible areas; and where serious logistical problems (with the Dibouti railway) delayed and interrupted food distributions, once increased levels were agreed to. Nutritional status in most areas of Hararghe declined rapidly in the first half of CY 1988. When the situation was finally rectified in the summer of 1988 nutritional status began to improve. However, for those children who fell dangerously below 80 WFL for a long period of time, the risk of mobidity and mortality increased significantly.
F. Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Conclusions:
" In 1987 there were numerous social signs of trouble showing that people in certain drought-prone regions of Ethiopia did not have enough to eat.
" The food crisis developed much more rapidly than in 1982 85 and the impact of 1-2 poor seasons was enormous because farmers had not fully recovered from the previous emergency. In fact in 1986/87 their food security was very delicate.
o Signs of social stress began to appear in mid-1987. In the north food insecurity was aggravated by civil insecurity. Market activities ', the sale of firewood and
'Ups and downs in livestock and grain prices were, on the whole, consistent with trouble in the food sector, though data was not always consistently collected, analysis did not always indicate any trends, and SAVE/UK does not have the capacity for sophisticated analysis of economic data.
79 charcoal, population movements and the use of famine foods in the last half of 1987 all indicate distress. These activities continued in early 1988 and increased until February/Harch. o Emergency food distribution stopped famine in its tracks. Emergency food distributions did not begin soon enough to stop social stress but the magnitude of the problem was reduced by early food distributions in November-December of 1987 and January-March in 1988. When food distribution had become fairly widespread, by February/March 1988, most population movement ceased, grain and livestock prices became more stable and there were few reports of people eating famine foods.
0 There is substantial evidence to indicate that the level and flow of flood aid during CY 1988 averted a serious food shortage situation which could have led to widespread nutritional deterioration in many areas in Ethiopia. o Instead nutritional status in most drought affected areas for which data is available remained good to satisfactory. Increased mortality typically associated with severe drought conditions was for the most part avoided or stopped. o USAID, NGOs and the RRC successfully exercised a program of famine prevention in 1987-88 not Just famine relief as in 1984-85. Social signs of trouble never became widespread and ceased when and where adequate food distribution was attained.
0 Many famine coping mechanisms are no longer available to the peasant. Either he has exhausted them or the government has made them difficult to use. Farmers, therefore, remain particularly vulnerable to just one or two bad harvests. o Targeting populations went through several stages. First a strategic level, giving an approximate idea of the size of the problem, allowing donors to respond. Second tactical decisions about areas at risk, some idea of the numbers at risk there, and NGOs' capacity to respond. Third, re-estimates of the numbers at risk made after surveys had been done and feeding had begun. The RRC made some such re-estimates but they never became official. Fourth, continuous on-the-ground revisions of beneficiaries coupled with food swaps and changes in ration size. o Emergency ration size and quality varied greatly among PVO's, from a 1200 to 2400 calorie level. In some areas ration size may have been too low due to incorrect nutritional needs assessment, lack of adequate food for
80 distribution, and the use of household, rather than per capita, ration distribution criteria. The RRC has recently developed Nutritional Guidelines for Food Relief Rations which are reasonable and complete.
o The nutritional surveillance system developed by Save the Children (UK) is one of the best in the world and played an important and effective role in the 1987/88 drought relief effort: identifying problem areas overlooked in the initial needs assessment--generating actions of increasing or re-targeting food aid to problem areas--providing systematic data to monitor and evaluate the impact of the relief effort.
" Where RRC estimates of beneficiary numbers were too low, areas went un-targeted, and/or inadequate supplies of food aid were distributed, rapid declines in the nutritional situation occurred. Hararghe appears to be the area that unexpectedly suffered the most serious declines in nutritional status. Prolonged disputes regarding beneficiaries and areas to be assisted, inadequate levels of food aid relative to need, serious food distribution interruptions and inability of the transport system to carry sufficient tonnage for the region during CY 1988 affected the situation:
" The nature and force of "famine coping mechanisms" is little understood and widely over-estimated.
" Many farmers in areas drought stricken in 1987/88 still face the possibility of famine in the future due to the time (at least three to four years) that it takes to recover and build up assets.
2. Recommendations:
o The US should act early, quickly and flexibly, as it did in 1987, whenever there are serious indications of trouble. Fast action may stop famine dead in its tracks. Fast action is especially important when people have had little chance to recover from earlier food shortages.
o USAID, the RRC and NGOS believe famine coping mechanisms, about which very little is known, play an important part in food emergencies. AID and others also wonder whether famine coping mechanisms explain why predictions about the extent of food needs are sometimes wrong. A serious study of famine coping mechanisms Thould be undertaken so that their role can be more precisely understood in future emergencies. The study should be country-, region-, and ethnic group - specific, employ anthropologists/sociologists vith regional and ethnic experience, and ensure adequate field time to gather accurate information.
81 o The donor community should continue to support the Save (UK) Nutritional Surveillance System and The RRC Nutrition Surveillance Program at the resource level necessary to institutional'ze the system. This system provides an excellent mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the nutritional situation in Ethiopia.
o USAID should encourage and support all US PVOs to adopt the new RRC guidelines on collection and analysis of nutritional status data, based on the SAVE model. It will only be through the data generated by the NGOs that RRC will have adequate information of the most vulnerable groups. All PVOs are currently collecting nutritional data. Reorienting their collection and analysis systems to the RRC guidelines may actually decrease their present work load and will certainly make their data more useful. Technical assistance should be provided to all US PVOs for developing and implementing these systems. CRS/JRP, the largest provider of emergency food aid is interested in receiving technical support. USAID should contact UNICEF and A.I.D/W to arrange technical expertise in this area.
o As part of the RRC process of identifying and quantifying the level of population in need of assistance, NGO's and local agencies should be requested to carry out local level assessments to assist the RRC to refine beneficiary estimates where needed. This procedure should become a collaborative process and the next step for actually programming and targeting food assistance in each area of need. This is a process and there should always be flexibility to increase or reduce beneficiary numbers throughout the emergency response, based on changing needs of the population. Several NGOs, like SAVE(US), have developed assessment strategies and these should be shared with the RRC.
Local assessments should be based on identifying the number of persons affected by the drought, analyzing the effects of the drought within a specific geographical area, and quantifying the number of people in immediate need of food. Production deficits by region should be used as only one factor to judge overall food need. Since farm production only provides a part of household consumption, almost all farmers buy or trade food items in the market. Therefore, loss of income and purchasing power as a result of the drought should be included in all assessments along with the affected traditional coping mechanisms, as well as need and timing for food relief. o Rations should be developed based on an assessment of the target population's access to food over time and resulting nutritional deficit. A first decision in determining ration size and composition is deciding if the ration will
82 be supplemental or will supply the total nutritional requirements.
-- Calorie requirements should be no less than 2000 kcal/capita/day. A full ration would completely provide this level of energy; a supplemental ration would cover the deficit.
-- Per capita ration distribution criteria should be used rather than household based ration.
-- Protein food sources, such as lentils, NFDM, and blended foods like CSB, should be a part of a general relief ration when typical protein sources have been affected by the drought and are in limited supply. This is particularly important for the undex-five population.
-- All guidance for standard rations should provide flexibility to project implementors to modify rations based on target population needs and changes in the situation. o The RRC. WFP. NGOs and donors should consider reasons for the rapid nutritional deterioration in Hararghe in 1988 and compare differences in the relief strategies and responses to Wello and N. Showa, two very successful efforts to extract lessons learned. o USAID should support a workshop for all NGOs that received emergency food aid to share experience and lessons learned.
83 VI. AGRICULTURAL RECOVERY
A. Introduction
In FY 1988 the AID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance provided approximately $4.8 million to nine NGOs for the purchase of seeds and tools to assist the return of drought-stricken farmers to self sufficiency. These programs provided seeds, hand tools and limited logistic costs. Typ .cally, the assisted farm family received seed of several varieties (maize, wheat, sorghum, teff, beans) equivalent for one or two acres, and replacements for worn or lost hand tools (hoes, shovels, sickles) or a new plow point.
Table 12 shows zhe participating agencies and the grant amounts. These agencies were working with local NGOs and churches and most had additional funds from other sources. The total recovery program cost about $14 million, and assisted around one million farmers to return to self-sufficient agricultural production. The majority of these funds were channeled through CRDA who assisted in the procurement and purchasing. In the majority of cases, the agencies conducted direct distribution to individual beneficiaries.
B. The Condition of Farmers in 1984/85 and 1987/88.
After a series of bad harvests and hunger or famine in 1984/85 and 1987/88, many farmers had no seeds or tools left to plart with. Ethiopian farmers usually plant crops with quality seeds chosen from their last crops or with seeds they buy locally from farmers known for the quality of their seeds. Even when yields are down farmers still attempt to set aside enough seed from the harvest to sow the next crop. When drought occurs, however, this process breaks down. A family begins to sell off material assets including farm implements and animals in order to buy food. If the hungry period lasts long enough poorer families may have no assets left to buy tools or oxen for cultivating and harvesting once again. Such families on the brink of destitution will have to borrow tools and animals from relatives or neighbors, who will not refuse but who will make sure they get their own work done before lending items out and who will demand several days labor in return. The farmer without equipment will sow late, be short of time and incur more risk.
As a family grovs hungrier and hungrier its members may eat its seed out of desperation. They may hope to get a loan of seed from less desperate relatives who have been able to save seeds. Some people who are driven first to eat their seeds and then to move in search of food or food relief cou,.t on returning home after the rains to help other, more fortunate villagers, who remained behind with seeds to cultivate.
85 ETHIOPIAN DROUGHT EVALUATION
Table 12: Value of Grants Made to NGOs for Agricultural Recovery, 1988
American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee $ 478,255 - Central, Southern Gonder
Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere 361,870 - 8 Highland awrajas of Hararghe, Southern Shewa
Catholic Relief Services 850,700 - Eritrea, Tigray
Ethiopian Orthodox Church 121,000 - Tigray, Hararghe
Food for the Hungry International 393,808 - Southern Gonder, Eritrea
League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 1,491,244 - Welo, Northern Shewa, Sidamo
Lutheran World Federation 225,000 - Welo, Illubabor, Keffa, Northern Shewa
Save the Children Federation/U.S. 393,320 - Northern Shewa
World Vision Relief Organization 498,000 - Welo, Northern Shewa, Sidamo, Gamo Gofa
TOTAL $4,812,197
86 In exchange, they receive part the harvest of the harvest for food is spectacular, however, and seed; unless to be the share they rcceive enough for an adequate diet is unlikely 'uffice to during the next year. sow more than a small area Nor will it a second time during the next season nor if the first planting fails. to sow themselves is Another way farmers with loans from money lenders reequip labor or produce. or credit to be repaid with Families who are hard at a distinct disadvanta hi- by hunger are, e in re2ainin2 their Displaced persons arlier Droduction level. and refugees are even more including neighbors desperate since everyone, and kin, loses assets and seed when they flee. A number of NGOs who enaed in famine relief that man in 1984-6 realized farmers then lacked seeds areas devastated and tools to resume farming. by the famine in 1984-5, In nothing, just the observers say, people had clothes they had on, but again. One knowledgeable nothing to start farming percent Ethiopian agronomist's estimate of farmers had lost their is that 50 anthropologists seed during 1984-5. Sociologists who have studied and anywhere the 1984-5 situation consider from 15-20 percent of peasants that the traditional themselves were unable to means of reequipping themselves use and would have totally destitute. remained
In 1985, someNOsbe through an to coordinate seed and CRDA financedin art tool urchases agricultural with US mone . They undertook recovery programs in their least to their areas to restore farmers pre-famine level of farming. at food the NGOs provided In addition to emergency critical elements for recommencing and tools such as spades, farming: seeds hoes and sickles. ' LICROSS also began agricultural a rehabilitation in 1986 Disaster Preparedness Strategy and developed program which grew by 1988 into of soil conservation and a regular improved agricultural practices.
'Certain NGOs also provided probably some oxen. Without oxen be unable to plow his normal a farmer would pair in exchange surface area unless he borrows for several days labor. a with oxen after But providing most families a drought would be almost scarce and expensive. impossible since livestock Most agricultural rehabilitation is only hand tools projects provide with which farmers can work their fields, and their gardens and part plow points for those farmers of oxen. Fortunately who have or can borrow after such a crisis it is hard for owners of oxen refuse to help. to
87 C. The Impact of Agricultural Rehabilitation Projects.
Despite farmers' efforts to recuperace with the help of agricultural rehabilitation programs, nature frustrated the:>- efforts to feed themselves, mwuch less store seeds and tools. :n 1984/85 CRDA provided 99,655 tools and 5,980 MT of seeds. In J.985/86 agricultural recovery projects continued to aid farmers who had lost all in the famine. It expanded to 437,000 tools and 16,700 MT seed for 3.4 million beneficiaries out of the 7.1 million people who had been at risk in 1984/6. By one calculation this means 64 percent of people who needed h2lp in 1986 received seeds/tools through CRDA and the NGOs.
In part, thanks to seeds and tools, the 1986 harvest in many areas was adequate to feed farmers and their families throughout the year, though not enough for people to build up reserve food stocks. The 1986 harvest was good enough for many farmers to keep their own seeds for 1987 and to purchase tools themselves; CRDA's 1987 requests for seed/tools dropped to 6,753 MT/169,690 tools. But in several areas, especially in Gonder, Wello and Showa, farmers got only partial 1986 crops because of lack of rain and insect pests. Many once again needed seeds/tools to plant in 1987.
After one bad harvest cycle in 1987/88 many farmers were once again without seeds/tools and another agricultural recovery program was necessary for farmers in the most stricken areas. Once again, faced with farmers unable to sow and work their fields, members of CRDA undertook to provide needed seeds/tools.
Materials were targeted to the neediest through local NGOs, churches and Natural Disaster Prevention and Relief Committees. CRDA bought the seeds in time for the belg 1988 planting season. 80 percent of their seed was targeted to areas hardest htt by the 1987/88 drought: Showa, Wello, Hararghe, Gonder, Eritrea. In these areas the condition of former recipients of seed/tools was so close to the margin of subsistence that after one bad year they had lost their livestock, had no food stocks, and were subsisting on emergency food aid. In areas where food aid was difficult to distribute such as Merhabete in Showa, people in 1988 were reduced to eating grass; these people had no seeds much less any food. In addition, although large parts of Eritrea had good rains in 1988, civil disorder had forced many people to leave behind their planted fields and belongings, including tools and seeds. In Tigray both drought and disorder affected people's ability to plant in 1988 and to continue to do so in 1989 but even emergency feeding, not to mention agriculture recovery, for these people in need is problematic at present.
88 D. Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Conclusions
o The seeds/tools provided by the NGOs in the 1988 rehabilitation programs were targeted to the neediest peole. To qualify for seeds/tools, farmers had (a) to be in a position to cultivate with what they received and (b) to lack the minimum input of seeds/tools. The seeds/tools for the most part were distributed directly to individual beneficiaries by the relief agencies, in a few cases through the RRC, local service cooperatives or the local MOA office.
o Most farmers appreciated and used the seeds and tools provided to them. Eighty one percent of recipient farmers interviewed in CRDA's evaluation of its 1988 Agricultural Rehabilitation project said the seeds were appropriate. The remainder complained that they were unfamiliar with the seed varieties, that birds ate the seeds, or that fast-maturing teff had a lower yield. Nevertheless, 82 percent of the farmers planted the seeds they received. Those who found the seed inappropriate managed to exchange the improved seeds for local varieties. CRDA obtained most of the seed locally so they were adapted to the local environment. Seventy one percent of farmers received their seeds before the optimal planting time. Failures in the procurement system, delays in securing funds at the central level, transport, untimely identification of beneficiaries were all constraints to reaching the remainder. But interviewed farmers said CRDA met almost two-thirds of their need for seeds.
o Agricultural Recovery projects are necessary after a famine and may continue to be necessary until several good harvests in a row occur. Anthropologists familiar with the situation in Ethiopia estimate three to four crop years. Agricultural recovery was necessary after three successive years of rain failure and the famine of 1984/85. By April 1985 10.8 million were facing famine; although it is impossible to arrive at any precise figure, many of these people would have had no means of returning to farming had it not been for agricultural recovery projects coordinated by CRDA and LICROSS. The 1985 program was successful because it was begun while emergency food distribution was still going on, so that people were equipped to farm when rain came. The need for agricultural recovery continued into 1986, when 6.5 million people were still at risk and without any
89 resources. Agricultural recovery for large numbers of farmers has been necessary ever since then. Many have not had a good enough year since the programs began to keep their own seed and many of those who were able to recover and save seed during 1986/87 lost their tools, etc., during the disastrous 1987/88 cycle. This decrease and increase in need is reflected in the drop in requests to CRDA for seeds/tools after the generally adequate harvest of 1986 and the jump in requests after the disastrous harvests of 1987/88. Again in 1988, 5.1 million people were short of food and many had no seeds or tools. Planting for the main 1988 crop, which at present appears to be good, was, for many farmers, dependent on the 1988 Agricultural Rehabilitation project.
o Agricultural rehabilitation efforts in 1988 met farmer's needs. The seeds were distributed in a fairly timely fashion, were appropriate to the area and used by the farmers. The hand and plow points tools are appropriate although cultivation without oxen may have been a problem since farmers are used to preparing the land with plows except in Eastern Eritrea.
2. Recommendation
o Agricultural recovery projects supplying seeds, hand tools (and plow points in areas where plowing is done) should be a part of any emergency relief program for agriculturalists, whether famine victims, displaced persons or refugees. Distribution should be coordinated with emergency food distributions, since without food farmers may be too weak to farm and without tools and seeds recovery will not occur. Such projects should continue to provide seeds and tools to farmers according to their needs for each crop year until a reasonable number of farmers have enough assets and have been able to stock enough food to last a year, thereby removing the threat they will be forced to eat their seed once again after another bad harvest.
90 VII. REGULAR PVO FOOD AID PROGRAMS'
A. Introduction
Prior to the 1984-86 emergency program A.I.D supported one regular maternal/child food program through Catholic Relief Services which averaged 8,000 MT a year. In FY87, as the emergency activities for the 84/85 famine halted in most areas, many of the PVOs who had administered food relief wanted to continue drought preparedness and famine prevention activities using Food For Work. Four programs involving FFW activities were approved to be carried out by Food for the Hungry, CARE, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and Save the Children. CRS continued its regular Mother/Child Health programs, while repositioning them in the drought prone areas. Total tonnage approved for FY87 was 22,022 MT, including 6,650 MT of wheat sold to support internal transport. The objectives of these programs included:
0 To increase drought preparedness in the worst drought affected areas through reforestation, soil conservation, water supply development;
0 To maintain NGO presence and operational infrastructure in country to respond to emergency situation and prevent famine;
o To support US/Ethiopia people-to-people relations; and,
o To demonstrate a constancy of USG presence and support for NGO activities.
The evaluation team addressed two major questions concerning NGO's food aid programs which were on-going in 1987/88:
0 How did the US supported NGO on-the-ground presence and their ongoing programs contribute to the effectiveness of the 1987/88 emergency relief program?
0 What impact have specific projects had on increasing drought preparedness and famine prevention in target areas?
'The terms PVO (private voluntary organization) and NGO (non governmental organization) are often used interchangeably. Typically, PVO refers to US-based NGOs. In Ethiopia, the term NGO refers to all non-governmental organizations including US-based PVOs, other country and indigenous NGOs.
91 Without hesitation the findings of the evaluation team are that the ongoing operational capacity of the NGOs is important and contributed significantly to preventing a disaster in 1987/88.'
B. The Role of the US PVOs and the Contribution of their Regular Programs to the Emergency Relief Effort
In order to assess the overall contribution of the PVO regular programs to the emergency relief effort, the following issues were examined:
o Were the NGO on-going programs located in the worst affected drought areas?
o Did the NGOs contribute to the early warning system and what was their role in "ground truthing" information?
o Did the NGOs presence in-country lead to increasing the timeliness of the relief response?
Were donors more likely to make pledges knuwing NGOs were in-country to carry out the program?
What role did their existing logistics and human infrastructure play in prepositioning and distributing food?
How did the NCO on-going programs directly support and strengthen the relief effort?
1. Location of the NGOs
All US supported NGOs with on-going programs were operating in the worst drought affected areas. CARE was in Hararghe; SAVE the Children(US) in the Showa areas of Yifat and Timuga; The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was in Gonder, Wello and Showa; Catholic Relief Services and the Joint Relief Program were operating in Eritrea and Tigray, as well as Hararghe, Food for the Hungry was in the difficult area of Gonder. All of these areas were designated as seriously drought affected in 1987/88.
'Due to limited time in the field and travel constraints, the team was not able to assess the impact of specific projects on their target populations and the main focus was on the south, not Tigray and Eritrea. Also, for many of the soil conservation projects it is too premature to evaluate their impact. Therefore the team will only comment on appropriateness of activities, preliminary outputs and NGO management.
92 The RRC evidently considered the NGOs regional knowledge and infrastructure to be important. They asked all the US NGOs during the emergency to cover the areas in which they had on-going programs. Some NGO's judged to have the capacity were asked to take on nearby areas as well.
2. Early Warning and "Ground Truthing"
By July 1987 NGOs had determined that there would be substantial crop failures in their areas due to the complete absence of Meher rains in some locations and limited rains in others. In some areas the 1987 Belg had failed too. NGO information on the situation began flowing into Addis Ababa early in 1987 to A.I.D and NGO headquarters. Because the NGOs were operating in all the drought affected areas they had grassroots information on the magnitude of the food problem in their areas. This information contained in August and September NGO emergency proposals became the basis for the US program. The NGOs basically confirmed the RRC estimations of the problem.
During October, November and December 1987 many NGOs began doing their own systematic assessments of the numbers of people affected in their areas, estimating the magnitude of need and the location of the most vulnerable groups.
During this time, as well as later, the reporting of SAVE (UK) was particularly useful to the NGO's, donors and RRC in verifying the seriousness of the problems and identifying problem areas and populations in need.
3. Planning: NGO Contributions to US Timely Response
NGOs with regular programs were aware of the impending drought situation and had prepared emergency relief proposals by the end of August 1987. Through the CRDA, the major NGO coordinating organization, the various relief organizations in country were able to collaborate and disseminate their early findings. Thus NGOs with regular programs had already began discussing plans for the relief effort when the RRC issued their alert in August. They were able to develop proposals quickly only because of their continuous experience in Ethiopia, many since 1985, others even earlier and a thorough knowledge of the areas that they would be covering in their relief program. AID/W approvals of emergency food came rapidly because there was confidence that the NGOs who had ongoing programs understood the situation, had the infrastructure, and could analyze the capability of the system to realistically move and manage food.
93 4. Program Implementation: The Need for an Operational Logistical Capability
NGOs with regular programs had food aid stocks, trucks and warehouses in country. In several areas, food from the regular programs was used immediately to begin expansion of regular programs to additional beneficiaries. Some NGOs were able to preposition food, because they had their own warehouses in areas where they planned to operate emergency programs. Most NGOs quickly made arrangements to rent or borrow additional stores in new areas and to expand their warehouse capacity in their own areas. Prepositioning of food before the rainy season in 1988 was particularly important for the harder-to-reach areas.
a. Use of NGO truck fleets
Many NGOs with ongoing programs had their own truck fleets. Without this trucking capacity, particularly during the 1987/88 drought period when government trucki were used for other purposes, moving the amount of food in such a timely fashion would have been very difficult if not impossible. Those NGOs with an extensive and varied fleet had fewer problems then those NGO with fewer trucks or NGO's which had no on-going regular programs and trucks fleets. JRP, for example, had depended on commercial trucks to move 80 percent of its food. When these trucks were directed to other purposes they found themselves unable to get enough food into Eritrea and Tigray to be able to build up stocks to feed the expected increase in beneficiaries. FHI, on the other hand, which was given one of the most inaccessible areas to supply, was able to move a considerable amount of food into distant areas with its small 4-wheel drive trucks. When they lost all but 1 truck in accidents and from military conflicts they could no longer preposition food. Some areas were without food or had partial rations and FHI had to turn to expensive airlifts. Trucks that had been approved for purchase in 1988 and bought by the NGOs, did not arrive until March or June, as in the case of FHI.
b. NGO communications systems
NGOs also had communications' systems in place in order to carry out their regular programs. When they had to expand into new areas they lacked this capacity as did PVO's who under took emergency work without a regular program infrastructure.
c. NGO field staff
All NGOs had staff in the field - food monitors, food distributors and warehouse managers, as well as agricultural extension agents, nutritionists, etc. Even though many of the NGOs had let go food handlers and monitors when the emergency relief was cut back in 1987, many of these were rehired immediately. During interviews NGOs
94 said that having their own staff already in the field familiar with the areas and people they worked with permitted a rapid expansion of food distribution in their areas. Likewise the NGOs were able to expand their Food For Work projects to include people at risk. If they had not had these FFW projects designed and under way they would have had to use general relief distributions in order to reach people. In addition, trust had been built up with the local people, farmers associations, communities and local agencies. These relationships facilitated the cooperation needed to initiate emergency programs; such cooperation based on trust had not been developed in 1985/86 when NGO's were new on the ground.
5. Beneficiary Registration and Targeting
Many of the US supported NGOs did their own needs assessment with their local counterparts. They knew who were the most vulnerable people and were able to determine when food aid would be necessary and the numbers who needed it. In some areas NGOs found that RRC beneficiary levels were seriously low, in some parts of Gonder, for example, while in other areas such as parts of Showa they knew that the situation was not as serious as the RRC had predinted. Because they already knew the areas, the NGOs were able to refine targeting strategies and quickly set up registration mechanisms and select distribution sites.
C. The Impact of Regular Food for Work Programs on Drought Preparedness and Famine Prevention
As mentioned earlier, field observations of specific projects were limited. Moreover, it is certainly too early to evaluate any of the Food for Work (FFW) project impacts on the environment or how valuable their role has been or will be in drought preparedness. Most projects started only in 1987 and were interrupted by the emergency which made their prime objective the distribution of food rather than future drought preparedness or famine prevention. One of the NGOs visited said that, while they had switched relief distributions to FFW in some sites starting in 1987, they still considered them "non-quality" because they had not had the time during the 1988 relief efforts to focus on community involvement and commitment, which would be their first priority beginning in 1989. Even so, it is still valuable to comment on what the FFW accomplishments have been and their apparent relationship to drought preparedness and famine prevention for the targeted populations.
95 1. Road Construction
Hundreds of miles of roads have been built by FFW since 1985 86. In the areas where NGOs were distributing 1988 relief food they used many of the secondary roads built by FFW, both through their own and WFP projects. These roads enabled trucks to carry food to areas that had been unreachable in 1984/85.
2. Other FFW projects
FFW projects have built ponds, check dams, micro basins, developed and capped wells, terraced and bonded fields, developed and maintained nurseries and planted trees, all activities targeted to conservation and reclamation of the fragile land base of Ethiopia. The programs are intended to serve three aims: (a) provide food to populations at need during emergencies or at risk during non-drought years, (b) improve or protect the drought-prone areas and (c) transfer knowledge and technology while engendering interest and commitment. How successful the PVOs have been in reaching these goals will have to await a future evaluation when the projects have had time to impact.
3. Brief summaries and comments on the four regular programs
a. Catholic Relief Services
CRS has moved its MCH clinics from Addis Ababa to the drought-prone areas and is developing a number of new standards for operation. They have tightened criteria for entry, are providing more health services and have indicated their interest in developing a new system of nutritional monitoring. CRS has not begun to implement FFW as yet. They are proposing to do so in 1989.
b. Ethiopian Orthodox Church
None of the EOC projects were visited. However, in 1987 five of the six project sites were visited by USAID staff who commented that "Without exception, the projects were responsibly engineered and implemented with a great deal of community enthusiasm." Because of its church network EOC is able to directly manage its FFW and in the past has concentrated on road construction and terracing.
c. Save the Children Foundation
SCF's progress on its FFW projects was interrupted by the need to begin intensive emergency relief programs. SCF's target is the Afar pastoralists and projects planned had included infrastructure improvement by road construction into clan area, establishment of nurseries and herd restocking through animal health projects, as well as primary health and water development. Despite the emergency FFW was
96 able to clear some 50 Km of road, establish four hand dug wells and plant 6 hectares of maize and vegetables. SCF intends to reorganize in 1989 and work toward their original goals of an integrated package of famine prevention activities for the Afar pastoralists.
Since 1985 SCF has been working closely with Ministry of Health officials and has developed an impressive health care program in their areas of operation. During the relief effort, SCF was able to continue and expand measles vaccine coverage and monthly weighing of their target groups. Whereas some measles outbreaks occurred outside their target area, no measles cases in children tetween one year of age and five occurred in 1988 in their area. Chloroquine was also made available. In the SCF areas of Yifat and Timuga, nutritional status of the children was particularly good and better than in most other locations in 1987 88.
d. CARE
Due to the significant food shortages. a large number of labor-intensive projects were supported by FFW in Hararghe. Pond construction, road construction and repair, terracing, check dam construction and main nursery operation activities were generally initiated by communities, except for the central nursery operations. CARE also includes an element of non-FFW labor when contracting with communities for project activities. While these are often much more difficult to negotiate, when implemented they show an even greater community commitment and interest. CARE has programmed farmer education activities into its projects. They have 24 Ethiopian extension agents who have built a good relationship with the MinAg and the communities. The ones that the team met on their trip seemed totally dedicated and enthusiastic about what they were doing. These extension agents have reported they have reached 5,500 farmers with photo series, slide and filmstrips on topics from forestry to soil conservation to fodder production.
While CARE was the NGO who said they did not consider their FFW activities "quality" as yet because they had not achieved the degree of community involvement and commitment they wished to achieve, there were evidences that technology transfer was taking place. In one location a former FFW nursery worker, with a donation of seedlings from CARE, had started her own nursery operation, was employing workers and training villagers in tree cultivation and maintenance. In another location a local school teacher had brought his class to a nursery and was doing a "show and tell" on tree planting and nurturing. The children were doing hands on seedling planting.
97 D. Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Conclusions
o The N3Os played an invaluable role in the -uccess of the 1988 relief response, in particular those NUOs who had regular on-going programs, with logistics infrastructure and staff already working in the most drought-affected areas. As trucks were one of the most critical factors in food movement and prepositioning in 1988, NGOs with their own truck fleets and maintenance capability were able to move food much more expeditiously than those who had to rely on the commercial and WTOE fleets. Knowledge of their program areas and working relationships with local agencies also enabled NGOs to assess problems early, develop appropriate relief proposals and implement them efficiently.
o While it is certainly too early to evaluate the impact of the FFW projects, a documentation review of the activities (proposed and ongoing) and visits to some of the sites to see them in operation would seem to point to an appropriateness of concentration for drought preparedness and famine prevention in the communities in which they are being mounted.
0 NGOs with strong indigenous counterparts provided the best access to conflict areas; strong indigenous NGOs are also essential to the longer-term capacity of Ethiopia to respond to its own needs.
2. Recommendations
0 USAID and Washington should continue to support regular on-going US food assisted programs in Ethiopia, with an emphasis on the most drought-prone areas and on activities which would have the most impact on drought preparedness and famine prevention. Levels should be flexible and should be based on program content. Program size should be large enough to maintain sufficient NGO infrastructure for quick emergency response.
o CARE has said they intend to set up a baseline against which to evaluate their FFW projects and Save the Children (US) wants to develop an effective monitoring system. It is recommended that A.I.D assist in these efforts and help develop standardized baseline surveys and methodology which can be used by all the NGOs. These types of activities will help ensure that problems are detected
98 early and NGO responses can be shaped or refined and targeted appropriately. Improved NCO data collection capacities will help to improve the early warning systems in Ethiopia.
99 VIII. THE U.S. RESPONSE TO THE 1987/88 FOOD EMERGENCIES: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Major Recommendations
0 The US should act early, quickly and flexibly, as it did in Ethiopia in 1987, when there are indications of serious food shortages. Fast action stops famine.
o AID should maintain a staff in Ethiopia of sufficient size to efficiently manage the requirements of regular and emergency programs.
o The USG should support regular NGO programs targeted at drought preparedness and famine prevention during non emergency years. Programs should be located in the most drought-prone areas; should be of sufficient size to warrant adequate infrastructure; and levels should be flexible and based on sound proposals and correctly targeted populations.
0 A study of famine coping mechanisms should be undertaken so that their role can be more precisely understood in future emergencies.
0 A.I.D. should urge EWSs and donors to give greater weight to information, whether quantitative or qualitative, gathered by the on-the-ground NGOs.
o A.I.D. should support the use of the new 1987/88 RRC Nutritional Guidelines for Food Relief Rations as well as the Guidelines on Collection and Analysis of Nutrition Data by NGOs distributing US emergency food aid in Ethiopia.
0 The USAID mission should do more frequent needs assessments tied to crop cycles in Ethiopia.
0 The need to include an agricultural recovery program as a component of a food emergency program should always be assessed.
o A.I.D. should continue to provide support grants along with food commitments: This includes a grant which would offer the option of trucking Lor programs in Hararghe.
o Donors should work with the GPDRE to determine an appropriate and cost effective level for a food security reserve.
o EEWs should consider replacing the existing go/no-go warning with one that parallels the U.S. National Weather Service's weather advisories.
101 o All the NGOs utilizing SCF/UK's nutritional monitoring system should be encouraged to help support this activity on a cost-share basis.
B. Early Warning Systems
1. Conclusions
0 The "success" of the EEWS in 1988 was due not only to its own early warning but to the support its prediction received from other EWSs at work in Ethiopia at the time. The 1988 emergency was correctly identified at a strategic level by the Ethiopian Early Warning System. The official early warning issued in mid-August 1987, amplified by the unofficial warnings of other organizations, was the catalyst to official actions of the GDPRE, the UN system, the donor community, and the subsequent early high level of attention paid by donors and others to the NGOs. The numerous formal and informal EWS's existing in Ethiopia reinforced the EEWS' assessment of the 1988 food situation thereby giving the EEWS the credibility that it required. The EEWS' strategic assessment in August 1987 of the food problems for 1988 clearly noted that it was too early to determine the magnitude and exact locations of the need on a regional local level. A few months later tactical early warnings were issued by region with explanations of food assessment needs as they were available at that time.
0 It seems that with the EEWS, as with other formal and informal EWS in Ethiopia, there exists a go/no-go warning system; that is, either there are famine-like conditions and assistance is required or there is no famine situation and no emergency assistance required. This is too coarse with respect to the types of warnings that might be issued related to severe food shortages.
0 NGOs are viewed by the RRC as an important adjunct part of the food relief infrastructure. The RRC considers NGOs essential sources of information about conditions in their locales. They provide timely information on local conditions and they serve as conduits to get food relief distributed in the areas in which they operate.
2. Recommendations
o It would not be particularly useful to expend energies trying to elect one EWS as THE EWS within Ethiopia (or even internationally). Instead the importance of having many different systems which weigh various indicators differently concur in indicating a problem should be recognized. That concurrence should amplify the importance of the problem being predicted.
102 " The NGO's capacities to gather information on food security issues for use in early warning, baseline data, and monitoring should be strengthened. This information should be used for famine-preparedness and food-emergency response.
o EEWS should consider replacing the existing go/no go warning with one that parallels the US National Weather Services weather advisories. The NWS issues three major kinds of warnings: advisories, watches, warnings. An advisory is issued to alert a community that a certain weather-related event may happen; it is not a certainty but there is possibility of occurrence. A watch is issued when the forecasters believe that the weather-related event is most likely to take place; however, there is still a chance that the event might not happen. A watch has a higher probability of occurrence than an advisory. A warning is issued when the event has begun to take place somewhere in the area (city, county, state or nation). This particular gradation of advisories would be an improvement over the go/no-go advisory that is currently used.
C. Food Needs Assessment
1. Conclusions
o Food need assessments are a vital factor in determining a country's food deficit, both structural and emergency, and its important needs. Needs assessment, which deals with the amount of food available and the size of any deficit, is often confused with Early Warning Systems, which indicate whether there is an emergency and whether it is growing. The information gathered and analyzed by EWS can indicate whether there is a food need, where and how many people show signs of being impacted, but the actual calculation of food need is a separate process that involves not only information from EWS but other economic facts as well.
" Food needs assessments depend on harvest reports, etc., and may be calculated too late to engender a response early enough to meet the defined need.
o The 1987/88 assessment was for more food than the total amount delivered in 1984/85, which had already stretched the logistical capacity of the nation, NGOs, and WTOE to the limit. The 1987/88 assessment and needs assessment as calculated at present do not factor in the logistical capacity, the infrastructures limits, or other constraints to a response.
103 o The RRC. FAO and USAID use differing methods to calculate their food needs assessments. Each method has its merits and weaknesses.
2. Recommendations
" Food needs assessments from various sources should be examined and compared to see to what extent they confirm or contradict one another. The degree of confidence accorded to the figures should be greater when the assessments are all essentially in the same range.
o USAID/Addis Ababa should do food needs assessments on a more frequent basis and more closely tied to the crop cycles, i.e July/August, February/March.
D. The US Response
1. Conclusions
" The decision to scale down the USAID mission and US assisted voluntary agency programs in early 1987 was too precipitous.
" Ethiopia's transportation infrastructure limited the amount of assistance that could be moved from the ports to the targeted populations. The transport network which had deteriorated after 1984/85 was greatly improved by the donors in 1987/88 but is still inadequate to meet the demands of another major disaster. The Djibouti port and railway presented a continuing serious problem which was never satisfactorily resolved.
" Donor coordination operated well and contributed to the success of the 1988 drought relief program.
" While distribution to the targeted population did not achieve 100 percent coverage, social and nutritional information indicate that a serious food problem was averted.
o The US and GDPRE achieved wide coverage of the drought affected areas through NGOs.
o Early approval, early shipment and use of tranche shipments partially avoided a port backlog and assured that US food got in ahead of other donors.
2. Recommendations
0 A.I.D, should maintain a staff in Ethiopia of sufficient size to efficiently manage the requirements of regular and emergency programs. The staff should have the requisite skills needed to coordinate with international and
104 government agencies, monitor early warning, calculate needs assessments, manage and help implement US-assisted PVO Programs and respond rapidly to emergency alerts and climatic and man-made disasters. o It is recommended that the US support regular PVO programs targeted at drought preparedness and famine prevention. Programs should be located in the most drought-prone areas and should be of sufficient size to warrant adequate personnel, administrative and logistical infrastructure which can be mobilized for quick emergency response. Levels should be flexible and be based on sound proposals and correctly targeted populations. Previous capping of programs at 22,000 MT was, we believe, too arbitrary. Regular program proposals should be reviewed in a collaborative manner and judged on their individual content and merit. Present levels--38,000 MT--seem adequate to maintain an appropriate mix of drought preparedness and famine prevention interventions, while supporting infrastructure maintenance, providing monetization tonnage. " In consideration of the size of the program a pipeline of 10,000 MT a quarter which could provide a 300 gram/day supplemental ration for 370,000 beneficiaries for 90 days while an emergency response is being mounted should at a minimum be maintained. This safety net will be necessary for at least 2-3 years until recovery is further along.
" Ways to expand NGO programs to encompass some responsibilities now resting with the in-country AID staff should be explored.
o The problem of Ethiopia's limited transportation infrastructure must be considered in any future US emergency response, in particular the problem of Djibouti port and railway must be remembered and grant funding for the alternative of trucking, rather than rail, must be included at the same time food assistance is approved the for Hararghe area. We urge the mission to discuss this problem with the NGOs operational in the area at the earliest opportunity.
E. Program Impact
1. Conclusions o There was a definite andgrowing food emergency in 1987/88. Emergency food distributions stopped apotential famine in its tracks. USAID, NGOs and the RRC successfully exercised a policy of famine prevention, not lust famine relief. There is substantial evidence to indicate that the level and flow for food aid during CY
105 1988 averted widespread social disruption and nutritional deterioration in many areas in Ethiopia.
o Even after the successful famine prevention effort of 1987/88 and an agricultural recovery program most farmers have not recovered. Most will be vulnerable to bad harvests until they have several good years in a row. Farmers in areas which had a bad harvest in 1988 may encounter food shortages in 1989.
0 Many famine coping mechanisms are no longer available to the farmer. Either he has exhausted them or the government has made them difficult to use. Farmers, therefore, remain particularly vulnerable to just one or two bad harvests.
0 The nature and force of "famine coping mechanisms" is little understood.
0 NGOs' ration sizes and quality varied greatly. The RRC has recently developed new nutritional guidelines for food relief rations that appear reasonable for food shortage situations.
0 Where estimates of beneficiary numbers were too low or areas were untargeted. inadequate supplies of food were distributed, which led to declines in nutritional status.
o The nutritional surveillance system developed by Save the Children/UK played an important and effective role in the 1987/88 drought relief effort. It proved an excellent monitoring system, and provided "objective" data to identify problem areas and improve targeting.
2. Recommendations
o The US should act early, quickly and flexibly, as it did in 1987, when there are indications of serious food shortages. Fast action may stop famine in its tracks.
0 The donor community should continue to support the Save (UK) Nutritional Surveillance System and the RRC Nutritional Surveillance Program at the resource level necessary to institutionalize the system.
0 As part of the RRC process of identifying and quantifying the level of population in need of assistance, NGOs and local agencies should be requested to carry out local level assessments to assist the RRC to modify beneficiary estimates when needed. This procedure should become a collaborative process and the next step for actually programming and targeting for food assistance in each area of need.
106 o USAID should encourage and support all US PVOs to adopt the RRC ration and nutrition data collection and analysis guidelines.
F. Agricultural Recovery
1. Conclusions
o After the series of bad harvests and degree of famine and personal loss faced in 1984/85 and 1987/88 many Euhiopian farmers had no seeds or tools left to farm with once good rains came.
o Agricultural recovery projects in 1988 met most of farmers' needs for seeds and tools. The seeds were usually suitable for the areas where they were distributed.
2. Recommendation
o An agricultural recovery program supplying seeds and tools should be a part of any emergency food relief program for agriculturalists. Distribution should be coordinated with food distributions and should occur early enough for farmers to prepare their land and be ready to sow at the optimal time.
G. Regular Food Aid Programs
1. Conclusions
0 The NGOs played an invaluable role in the success of the 1988 relief response, in particular those NGOs who had regular on-going programs, with logistics infrastructure and staff already working in the most drought-affected areas.
o Knowledge of the program areas and working relationships which NGOs had d.-veloped with local agencies enabled NGOs to assess problems early, develop appropriate relief proposals and implement them efficiently.
o The regular program activities appear to be sited in the appropriate areas and focused on the appropriate drought preparedness and famine prevention targets.
2. Recommendations
o It is recommended that the US support regular NGO programs targeted at drought preparedness and famine prevention. Programs should be located in the most drought-prone areas and should be of sufficient size to warrant aequate
107 personnel, administrative and logistical infrastructure which can be mobilized for quick emergency response. Levels should be flexible and be based on sound proposals and correctly targeted populations.
108 ANNEX I
Scope of Work ANNEX I
ETHIOPIA 1988 DROUGHT SSISTANCE EVALUATION
I. Background
The 1988 A.I.D. Emergency response over to the Ethiopian drought included 250,000 MT of P.L. 480 food and agriculture a substantial emergency support recovery program of some and 19 million dollars. The value the PL 480 component was of approximately 100 million dollars. the size and importance Because of of this program, a major undertaken evaluation must be to document program performance, constraints effectiveness, major and lessons learned. A regular Title II program is also operating in country. Its contribution to the emergency relief and mitigating the effects effort of the drought will also be reviewed
A. To evaluate the timeliness, appropriateness and impact of the U.S. emergency assistance program for Ethiopia during 1987-88. B. To assess the contribution of the regular Title II program mitigating the adverse to effects of the drought and preventing famine.
III. Scop ofWork
The evaluation will focus on A. Early warning and needs assessment efforts B. Operational effectiveness of the program in terms of timeliness of food arrivals and distribution of food in-country and overall management of response. Constraints and donor efforts to overcome them should be addressed. C. Program results in terms of targeting, coverage, and impact population, eg, population on movements, nutritional status, mortality, morbidity, suffering averted, etc. D. The role of the regular Title II program and its contribution to drought preparedness.
E. The contribution of recovery programs to affected populations recovery. The following are illustrative of the issues that should in depth by the team in carrying be examined out the objectives of this evaluation. 4. Describe problems and how they were overcome. Suggest ways of expediting these procedures in the future.
5. Did A.I.D. provide the personnel, operating and logistic resources to launch the program effectively?
6. Donor Coordination:
Review the mechanisms which were in existence or established to coordinate assessments of donor requirements and implementation efforts.
Assess how effectively these mechanisms functioned and how might they be improve.
Assess A.I.D.'s role in relation to that of the host government and other donors in initiating and sustaining coordination functions.
D. Program Impact - Lessons Learned
1. To the extent possible, and taking into account the constraints inherent in disaster situations, the evaluation team will present evidence of the effectiveness/impact of the emergency, agricultural recovery and regular program interventions in terms of:
targeting: to what extent were the areas and/or victims with greatest need being reached?
coverage: what percent of the affected population were being assisted (by US, by other donors)?
- - social disruption
to what extent was nutritional status maintained and large scale suffering averted?
2. Determine the contribution of the regular programs to preventing famine and making the drought assistance program more effective. Are the regular programs operating in the appropriate drought prone regions and focusing on activities which lead to mitigating the effects of drought?
/ IV. Evaluation Approach and Duration
Three team members will meet in Washington two days prior to departure for Ethiopia to hold discussions with key officials.
Team will then proceed to Ethiopia to review documentation, interview kerr US mission host government, PVO and other donor officials and carry out field investigations. Two team members will be in country for two weeks and two team members for three weeks. Upon return from field visits, team will draft findings in a collaborative manner and present draft report to the mission before departure.
V. Team Composition and Level of Effort
Team will consist of four specialists in the following areas of expertise: social/anthropology; public health/nutrition; early warning; and food management and programming.
VI Report
The team will submit draft findings, conclusions and recommendations to USAID/Ethiopia before departure, approximately at the end of three weeks in country. Before departure the team will also debrief the GPDRE, USAID and the US Embassy on their findings. Five copies of final draft report are to be submitted to FVA/FFP for distribution no later than 2 weeks after country departure. After receiving A.I.D. comments the final report will be prepared and submitted to FVA/PPE. Twenty copies of this report will be delivered. ANNEX 2
Early Warning Systems: An Overview ANNEX 2
EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS: AN OVERVIEW
Early Warning Systems are now drawing considerable attention as a result of recurrent droughts and famines in sub-Saharan Africa. There is a lot to be said for them: They can identify impending problems; they can target populations affected by specific problems; they can serve to mitigate the impacts of the forecasted event, and so on. There is also something to be said against them: they can be misleading, target inappropriate at-risk groups, lead to a false sense of security, and so on. The phrase early warning system (EWS) is used too loosely and often remains undefined. As a result, people are often confused about the goals and purpose of EWSs, their indicators, effectiveness, success rate, and, ultimately, their utility. Early Warning Systems need to be well defined before people can be expected to rely on them.
A. Definition of an EWS
An EWS should provide relevant information on changing conditions in a timely fashion so that its users can make appropriate responses to that information (e.g., warning), in order to achieve their purpose. The purpose of early warning on food supply conditions in Ethiopia is to identify impending food shortages at the national level, so that governments and NGOs can respond in a timely way to assure that mass death, starvation, migration and the development of feeding camps will not occur. It might not necessarily be as useful as an EWS for other aspects of food-related security situations in which different groups with different objectives may be interested such an EWS would not focus, for example, on the monitoring of long-term, low-grade but cumulative degradation such as soil erosion, deforestation, population movements into marginal areas (sometimes benignly referred to as "expanding the area under cultivation"), even though these decade-scale, long-term low-grade cumulative changes, if not thwarted, will eventually adversely affect food production capabilities.'
I Hans Hurni, in a paper presented to Ethiopia's National Conference on Disaster Prevention and Preparedness ("Ecological Issues in the Creation of Famine in Ethiopia"), 5-8 December 1988, commented on this issue. He asserted that "the role of ecology in the creation of famines must be seen in its long-term rather than its short-term impacts. Due to millennia-old traditional land management and use, land B. Strategic and Tactical Uses of EWS
Early warning systems can be used to make both strategic and tactical decisions. A strategic early warning refers to the use of an EWS to identify at a general level a food deficit situation of such magnitude that Ethiopia's internal resources are likely to be insufficient to meet the food needs of its at-risk populations. In this situation a strategic EWS would identify food shortages in the following year based on some preselected set of indicators. It would suggest, for example, that there is a high probability of food import needs for the following year. This identification could be based on tne failure of rains in the Belg and/or Meher seasons (or the meteorological forecast of such a failure), poor crop yields, rising commodity prices in the market place, and so on.
Tactical uses of an early warning system might include making more specific decisions such as the size and location of population at risk.
A strategic use of early warning information involves determining whether an emergency is developing, whereas a tactical use of early warning information involves logistical decisions. The distinction between strategic and tactical should be considered in assessing the value of any particular indicator to early warning activity.
In assessing the value of an EWS, it is important to ask what the primary use of the EWS indicators will be. The early warning can be used for different purposes and it must be used with care. If it is used as a reactive device to prompt the delivery of food aid and to determine food needs, it could be viewed as a tool that deals strictly with emergencies. However, if it is used in a proactive way to prompt the undertaking of mitigative strategies in for example, agriculture, then it cannot help but be used for rehabilitation and development activities.2 resources and productivity potentials have already been considerably reduced in many parts of Ethiopia through deforestation, soil erosion, and fertility decline. This contributes considerably to the present level of famine vulnerability. Long-term trends ... give an even worse scenario indicating increased vulnerability in the future" (p.2).
2 Jim Maund of SAVE-UK has raised a key concern about the EEWS. "As we have seen in the very recent past, this system is very much geared to the production of national and regional estimates of overall crop production and deficits and to consequent appeals to international donors to, in effect, meet that predicted deficit with food aid. The system is heavily biased toward response; it has much less to do with prevention, if by prevention we mean actions needed to prevent large C. Formal and Informal EWS
Few information gathering and reporting activities could be considered a formal EWS. A formal EWS requires a systematic collection of information related to explicitly identified indicators, somehow "objectively" measured and weighted. The system of the RRC--- the EEWS or the Ethiopian Early Warning System--- is one such formal system. The US Government's FEWS (Famine Early Warning System) is another. Being formal, however, does not necessarily mean that it is effective. There is another type of EWS in Ethiopia, an informal one. In fact, it could be argued that many organizations (governmental and nongovernmental, foreign and indigenous) have such systems. For example, an NGO may systematically monitor such changes as food prices and/or nutritional status of 0 to 5 year olds as part of its activities but it usually reports on other factors as well, factors that its monitors come across as a result of their professional field activities. Informal information systems are not inferior to formal systems or vice versa. Information collected anecdotally or non-systematically creates a different type of early warning system.
D. Qualitatively-based vs Quantitatively-based EWS
All EWSs rely on indicators (but not necessarily the same ones) to identify the emergence of an extraordinary food deficit situation. Some of these indicators can be quantified, others cannot. Therefore, depending on how well we combine all the indicators (anecdotal, qualitative, and quantitative), we could have either an index (a quantified measure of change) or a qualitative notion that things are not going well. In either case, the reliability of the warning could vary. Reliability is a separate issue from quantification of EWS indicators.
E. EWS as a Forecast System
An early warning is much like a forecast of the weather. Weather forecasts are probability statements which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. However, in the long run people develop a sense of their value through observation and experience.
Like forecasts, an early warning attempts to project a present scale food aid donations. Perhaps I may go so far as to say that the system's success is judged very much in terms of its ability to encourage donations of food aid. How satisfactory is this system? Is famine prevention simply a matter of obtaining food aid and efficiently organizing its distribution? Is early warning simply for the purpose of informing donors of food deficits and food import needs? condition into the future. A strategic early warning seeks to forecast months in advance the state of food supply at the national level. Because such EWSs are relatively new, they have not had enough time to build up a track record of "wins and losses." Therefore, they still lack reliability and credibility. This is one of the reasons that each organization operating in the field, while using the EEWS reports issued by the RRC or early warning observations of others, still feels compelled to collect and rely on at least a few of what it considers the most relevant and important early warning indicators. No one has yet begun to view the EEWS output as a forecast with a probability (not a certainty) of success or failure.
An early warning is based on the monitoring of indicators. Different EWSs use different indicators. Each one of these indicators can also be viewed as a forecast. Each forecasted trend of an indicator has a probability of being right--or wrong. The indicators are often discussed but surrounded by caveats that take way from the certainty of that indicator (e.g., "it appears that .... "it could develop into ... ", etc.). An EWS forecast is thus a compilation of forecasts of different processes or events.
Users of EWS usually have a bias toward one or two indicators. They weigh (or value) their indicators more than the others. For example, the Ethiopian National Meteorological Service Agency (NMSA) favors rainfall information over all others as the key early warning indicator. The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) might favor crop yields as the most important indicator. The Central Statistical Authority (CSA), for its part, might favor a combination of factors such as food in reserve and hectares planted. Various NGOs might rely heavily on nutritional status as their favored early warning indicator. Bureaucrats in Washington or Brussels might rely on drought-related population migration and deaths to serve as their early warning of impending disaster.
Clearly, each variable measured can make a contribution to the understanding of changes in a country's or region's food situation. However, we must be clear about what that contribution might be. We hear talk about leading, lagging, and concurrent indicators. Rainfall is considered to be a leading indicator. However, in addition to the amount of rain that falls at a given time, it is necessary to know its spatial distribution.as well as its timing. It can be shown that rainfall amounts alone are not reliable as indicators of potential food deficits because the reduced amount of rain that does fall could fall during critical periods of crop growth and development. This would avert an adverse impact on crop yields and overall crop production. Nutritional status of the population is considered by many to be a lagging indicator. It lags behind the time by which a decision should be made in order to prompt effective action. While nutritional status might not necessarily serve as the initial early warning indicator to identify changes in the strategic food situation, it might be used tactically to identify (and to forecast) future changes in nutritional status at regional and local levels, as the food-related emergency progresses.
Thus there is a need for the managers of the different EWS to get together in order to discuss the similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses of their assessments. Otherwise, we have many competing, uncalibrated "food" shortage forecasts being bandied about, draining credibility from the concept of EWS as well as from other EWSs in Ethiopia.
Many questions and concerns can legitimately be raised about the value and reliability of EWS in general and of early warning indicators specifically. These need to be addressed. Today, EWS means many things to many people and may be composed of many different elements. To better understand the strengths and the limitations of such systems it is imperative that we clarify and make explicit our thinking about them. The EEWS should not be exempt from such examination even though many believe that the RRC's early warning system "worked" in 1988 and, as a result, that it should be considered as operational for the future.
Finally, another problem associated with forecasting disaster and response strategies to mitigate that disaster is that of determining the effectiveness of the forecast. If a disaster is forecast and steps are taken and no disaster occurs, can one consider the forecast successful? A counter argument is that the original forecast was wrong and that the responses to the forecast were unnecessary in the first place. There is no clear answer to this situation. However, deci'sions must be evaluated on the use of the best information present at the time of the forecast or projection even though they may have erred on the side of safety. This point concerns the discussion over the "success" of the 1987/88 emergency effort in Ethiopia. If the response erred too far on the side of safety then the response only appeared to be a "success" instead of causing a success.
F. Famine as a Process vs. Famine as an Event
Related to the issue of which indicators one might choose to favor with respect to early warning of severe food shortages is the concern about definitions of famine. Famine can be viewed as a process. It is a change in the availability of food to populations potentially at risk of starvation. The famine process begins with a lack of availability of food resources to the household (for whatever reason), and progresses to the selling of possessions, reliance on famine foods, migration in search of food, clustering in feeding centers, and so forth. Those who hold to the famine-as-process definition will look at those indicators weighing the earlier stages in the process more heavily than the latter stages in order to arrest the famine process before a cataclysmic famine occurs. Those who view famine as an event, however, would tend to rely on a different set of indicators, which show mass migration, large numbers of refugees in feeding centers, large-scale population movement, and large-scale deaths among at-risk populations. By the time these indicators are in hand, the final stages of the famine have unfolded and little can be done to prevent the worst aspects of famine from occurring.
These two views of famine underscore the fuzzy distinction between discussion of leading, lagging, and concurrent indicators and help us to understand why one group might point to a set of famine-as-process indicators which will not necessarily be readily accepted by another group who see famine as an event. ANNEX 3
Questionnaires Used by Evaluation Team on Field Trips and Interviews ANNEX 3 EMERGENCY FOOD PROGRAMS
PROJECT NAME IMPLEMENTING AGENCY SITE
Brief Project Description: Goals and Activities
1. Population Baseline Information
A. What was the impact of the 1983-85 emergency on the population in your area?
B. To what extent had people reestablished themselves before the Mehar 19877
C. How did previous project(s) in this area help people re-establish themselves before 19877
What independ.ent actio.ns did people..take to re-establish themselves before 1987?
2. Targeting
A. What populations was selected as program targets.; who selected th-em?
B. What criteria were used for selection?
C. Where some people at-risk left out? Why? D. What special targeting strategies did you use to reach your targeted population?
3. Coverage
A. What number of beneficiaries was targeted?
B. How many were actually reached at the program beginning; height of emergaency and end; why did numbers change?.
4. Inputs
A. Did food arrive at project site in timely fashion? In sufficient amount, good condition?
B. What other inputs important in achieving program goals did you receive? i.e., Measles vaccines, Vitamin A capsules. Did they arrive on time?
C. What were effects of late arrival of inputs?
D. Ration: 1. Identify ration composition and si7,e per beneficiary, per household. 2. Was ration-appropriate in terms of quantity, quality, and cultural acceptability?
3. Program Impact
A. Population Movements
1. Did your target population stay in their villages? Did they move? When? If they moved, Why?
2. How did your program contribute to populations remaining where they lived?
3. Were there any camps set up in your area? Why?
B. Coping Mechanisms
What coping mechanisms did people use and when? Such as: Consuming Stored Food Consuming Seeds Migrant Labor to earn money (who left and when?) Did people start new local jobs? Asset Sales Did people eat famine foods? When did they start?
How did progfrm affect'necessity to use traditioxfl drought coping mechanisms?
C. Nutritional Impact
What evidence is there that nutritional status of' target population remained the same? Improved or deteriorated during drought period. (Attach any statistics) D. Mortality
Were there any deaths related to emergency conditions? What were direct causes, i.e., measles?
E. What evidence is there that certain diseases increased during drought, i.e., diarrhea, measles, cholera? How did programs address prevention or treatment of diseases?
F. In your areaqan you compare what happened to your target population to other people (not served by your program) also affected by the emergency?
G. How well do you feel your project succeeded. Why?
6. Constraints/Problems
Indicate particular constraints/problems faced by your program?
7. What advice would you give to people involved in emergency program planning and implementation in a similar situation? AGRICULTURAL REHABILITATION PROGRAMS
PROJECT NAME IMPLEMENTING AGENCY SITE
Brief Project Description: Specify Project Goals and Activities
1. Population Baseline Information
1. What was the impact of the 1983-85 drought on the population in your area?
2. To what extent had people re-established themselves before the Mehar 1987? Specifically what was level of on-farm food and seed stocks and livestock?
3. How did previous project(s) in this area help people re-establish themselves before 1987?
4. What independent actions did people take to re-establish themselves before 1987?
2. Targeting
A. What populations were selected as program targets; who selected them?
B. What criteria were used for selection?
C. Were some farmers at risk excluded? Why?
D. How were materials, i.e., seeds, tools distributeld to farmers?
/ EARLY WARNING/NEEDS ASSESSMENT
1. Do you monitor local conditions? e.g., rain fall prices,
2. When did you feel that the emergency situation was developing for 1988?
3. Did you decide an emergency was developing or did someone else?
4. Who do you'send information to?
5. Do you also report on problems with logistics, security, etc. which would limit your ability to assist.
6. What do you consider the best early warning indicator(s)?
7. What do you consider the best source of information for what's going on in the country (with respect to the food situation)?
8. Do you produce an early warning report? (IF so get a hcopy)
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
1. Did you receive too much food - Was it difficult to store?
2. Is your storage adequate?
3. What are your present stocks.
4. Any specific problems? or changes you would like to make? 3. Coverage
A. How many farmers was project designed to reach?
-B. How many wer-e actually-reached?,
C. What problems did you face in reaching farmers?
4. Inputs
Seeds, Tools and Other Materials
A. Identify Inputs, i.e., seeds, tools etc.
B. Did inputs reach project site in timely fashion? What role did CRDA play?
C. Were seeds and tools distributed to farmers in timely fashion? How were they distributed?
D. Were seeds and tools, etc. appropriate and adequate (quality and quantity) to meet farmer's needs.
Complementary Activities
A. What was level and adequacy of complementary inputs? such as training and extension?
B. What was level and adequacy of supervision and monitoring? 5. Impact
A. What were production levels attributable to project?
B. How did project influence population movements?
C. How did project affect population wellbeing in terms of income, livestocks, food and seed stocks.
D. If production levels were inadequate, how has population met its needs?
E. In your area can you compare what happened to project beneficiaries to other populations not served by the project?
F. How well do you think project succeeded?
6. What were major problems and constraints in meeting project goalst
7. What advice would you give people planning and implementing programs in a similar situation? REGULAR PROGRAMS
PROJECT NAME IMPLEMENTING AGENCY SITE
Brief Project Description: Goals and Activities
1. Population Baseline Information
1. What was the impact of the 1983-85 drought on the population in your area?
2. To what extent had people re7established themselves before the Mehar 1987?
3. How did previous project(s) in this area help people re-establish themselves before 1987?
4. What independent actions did people take to re-establish themselves before 1987?
2. Targeting
A. What populations were selected as program targets; who selected them?
B. What criteria were used for selection? 3. Coverage
A. How many people are participating in the project? How does this compare to target level?
4. Inputs
A. What were basic inputs, into project, i.e., food,i tools, complementary activities, i.e., training, technical assistance, etc.
B. Have project inputs been adequate (quantity and quality) to achieve project goals?
5. Impact
A. How have project activities contributed specifically to improving capacity of target groups to combat famine and improve drought preparedness during 1987/88 drought.
B. What evidence is there that project will contribute to improving capacity of target population in the long run to prevent famine?
C. How did NGO presence and on-going program infrastructure contribute to emergency response, i.e., provide logistical an human infrastructure. D. In your area can you compare what happen to your project population during the drought to other populations in similar situation not served by the project.
6. What were major constraints and problems affecting achievement project of goal and support of emergency response?
7. Do you think this project should be continued?
8. How-can similar projects be made more effective for supporting, emergency response and famine prevention? ANNEX 4
Summary of 1988 US-Supported
Voluntary Agency Emergency Relief Programs Catholic Relief Services - Missionaries of Charity (CRS-MC)
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Missionaries of Charity, established by Mother Theresa of Calcutta, reach some of the most needy people in Ethiopia. The program includes shelter for the infirm or mentally handicapped, medical assistance, and feeding for destitute people. Both shelter residents and the destitute receive hot meals daily. Sites are operated in the regions of Shewa (Addis Ababa), Harerghe (Dire Dawa and Jijiga), Keffa (Jimma), Wollo (Alamata), and Tigray (Mekele and Axum). During the famine relief effort of 1985-86, 22,000 beneficiaries were served on a monthly basis. Although many of the famine affected have returned to their homes, the Missionaries continue to assist 11,200 persons. Logistics, commodity administration and reporting for the MC program handled b, 'atholic Relief Services.
PL 480 TITLE II INPUTS
Fiscal Year 1988 TOTAL COMMODITIES (MT)
Bulgur 1,560 1,560 NFDM 400 400 Beans 200 200 Vegoil 186 186
TOTAL 2,346 2,346
VALUE (000)
Commodity $ 561.9 $ 561.9 Ocean Freight 293.3 293.3 Internal Transport 281.6 281.6
TOTAL $ 1,136.8 $ 1,136.8 FIi] ura 4s-]: 'Ca tholIc ItelleIf Nerv I t:e~ - IHissiollaILS of 1Char I Ly (Cts-1ir)
S I uwa: Aild#is A IlaIha Ili i:A Aam ata Ila ra rca: DIire !)aia aid J igj--:n T i gray: hakle Ic assi Axial-! 4c f f a: i i~n Ita Io 1)
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C a~"~~_ _ n u J-1.~ ,* ~', CARE
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Hararghe region, a crop deficit area in normal times, suffered an 80 percent loss of maize and 35 percent loss of sorghum in 1987/88. CARE re-established its dry ration distribution network in Hararghe, which served 650,000 beneficiaries at the peak distribution period in 1985-86. Estimates for 1988 beneficiaries were between 500,000 and 614,500 in the awrajas of Chercher, Habro, Garamulata, Gursum and Jigaga. However, as discussed in the evaluation, these levels were never met because of problems of selection and logistics. CARE's second target area, the Arero awraja of Sidamo region, though seriously affected by drought in 1985-86, was not as severely affected. The pastoralist population, however, continues to require inputs while herd levels rebuild, and will benefit from a CARE food for work program.
In April of 1988, CARE expanded its operation into northern Shewa region in coordination with the Southern Baptist Mission and for a separate target group in southeastern Shewa, serving a total of 305,000 beneficiaries. A request for 829 MT of vegoil, with additional transport funds, was approved in May, to supplement grain already pledged.
PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS
Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL
Wheat 31,250 20,000 51,250 Vegoil 1,125 1,549 2,674
Total 32,375 21,549 53,924
VALUE (000)
Commodity 4,426.0 3,602.8 8,028.8 Ocean Freight 2,484.4 1,693.6 4,178.0 Internal Transport 2,428.1* 1,800.7 4,228.8
Total $ 9,338.5 $ 7,097.1 $16,435.6
* A portion of the internal transport costs, $84.4, was obtained from the FY 1987 budget. Figure 4-2: CARE
Areas of Operation
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L,
International boundary Administrative ,Region boundary Awrojo Boundary Food for the Hungry International (FHI)
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
FHI operates feeding programs in Gonder, Shewa and Eritrea regions. The Gonder and Shewa sites, operated by FHI since 1985, have benefitted from FHI inputs through community health and food for work projects. The Shewa sites (Alaba, Mitto, Ameya/Goro, and Dano/Nono/Chelia woredas) were affected by drought in 1987 to a minor extent and food deficits were with food for work inputs. The Gonder sites (Simada and Tach Guyint woredas) were seriously affected by drought and required assistance for 260,000 beneficiaries. The Eritrea site was operated by the indigenous Faith Mission and receives non-USG food donations. Food commodities for FHI arrive at the port of Assab and are transported by FHI and rented vehicles to the primary warehouses. As the FHI field site in Moja Robit town of Guyint Awraja in Gonder is only seasonally accessible by road, airlift of relief commodities is sometimes required.
PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS
Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL
Wheat 6,300 2,524 8,824 Vegoil 365 101 466 ICSM 210 -- 210
Total 6,875 2,625 9,500
VALUE (000)
Commodity $1,048.4 $ 387.4 $1,435.8 Ocean Freight 544.4 201.9 746.3 Internal Transport 1,046.6* 328.1 1,374.7
Total $2,639.4 $ 917.4 $3,556.8
* $87.5 of this amount obtained from FY 1987 budget. Figure 4-3: Food for the Hungry International (FHI) Areas of Operation
I.. ERPV-REA"'$- seb
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ILUBA- A " H,A E S~ A-L-WA .Ho/,_ '_l _r '>\ /. - G A
International boundary Administrative ,Region boundary Awraja Boundary International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
In late 1987, ICRC resumed assistance to drought victims in areas of civil strife and war according to its mandate. In April of 1988, distributions in the North were interrupted by intensified war activity and subsequent evacuation of PVO expatriate staff from the area. In May of 1988, and in the wake of long standing tensions, ICRC was asked by the Ethiopian government to cease operations and to ;hand over resource to other agencies. Prior to this, ICRC had served approximately 730,000 beneficiaries in the regions of Eritrea (140,000), Tigray (360,000) and Gonder (230,000). Of the 7,500 MT of commodities approved for ICRC by the U.S. Government, 5,000 MT of wheat flour was transferred to JRP in Massawa port to be distributed in the North. Another 998 MT of beans was transferred to UNHCR for refugee feeding.
PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL
Beans 1,002 -- 1,002 ICSM -- 500 500
Total 1,002 500 1,502
VALUE (000)
Commodity 501.0 145.0 $ 646.0 Ocean Freight 125.3 62.5 187.8 Internal Transport 125.3 69.2 $ 194.5
Total $ 751.6 276.7 1,028.3 League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (LICROSS)
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
LICROSS works through the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) to distribute emergency rations. The 1988 program operated in Wollo, Sidamo, Harerghe and Shewa regions. USC commodities were distributed with other donor food, in the Kalit and Ambassel awrajas of Wollo region, serving a total of 200,000 beneficiaries. Another 100,000 famine stricken people were assisted in the other regions by LICROSS/ERCS. The distribution system of the ERCS in Wollo, which includes warehousing for over 9,000 MT, a private truck fleet and a volunteer network, is well established. Food commodities arrive at the port of Assab and are transported by truck to the end use distribution sites.
PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS
Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL
Wheat 4,000 4,000 8,000 Vegoil -- 1,000 1,000
Total 4,000 5,000 9,000
VALUE (000)
Commodity $ 500.0 $1,212.0 $1,712.0 Ocean Freight 300.0 425.0 725.0 Internal Transport 131.6 309.2 440.8
Total $ 931.6 $1,946.2 $2,877.8 Figure 4-4: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) League of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (LICROSS) Areas of Operation (1958)
Akibrda
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Ol-AM ,. e L177LGA0 IA -4 . U(.----.:f. L-I-CR: SS International boundary ICRC Administrative, Region boundary AwrOja Boundary OXFAM/UK PROGRAM DESCRIPTION OXFAM/UK has been implementing development projects throughout Ethiopia for several years. To help combat the effects of the 1987 drought, Oxfam agreed to carry out relief food distributions to beneficiaries from Raya na Azebo awraja in Tigray region. The distributions, for 70,000, were held near Alamata in Wollo. In February, 1,685 MT of supplementary food were approved for the Oxfam program. Due to security constraints in northern Wollo, distributions were taken over by the RRC. Because of the severity of the refugee crisis in Ethiopia, Oxfam transferred 500 MT of lentils to the UNHCR feeding program. OXFAM operates a joint trucking operation with SCF/UK which is utilized to move the commodities from the port of Assab to the warehouse in Dessie, Wollo. The cost of moving the commodities from Dessie to the distribution sites is covered by Oxfam. PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL ICSM 300 300 600 Lentils 625 625 1,250 Vegoil 260 -- 260 Total 1,185 925 2,110 VALUE (000) Commodity -- $ 490.8 $ 490.8 Ocean Freight -- 148.1 148.1 Internal Transport -- 65.2 65.2 Total $ 704.1 $ 704.1 Figure 4-5: OXFAM/UK SAVE THE CHILDREN/UK (SCF/UK) SAVE THE CHILDREN/US (SCF/US) UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND (UNICEF) Areas of Operation ER1T-REA" I./-,-:/\', s b T1GRAY //-- " r7'R C\ 0-:ILUB HAREGE \MEN OXFAM/UK SC F/UK International boundary SCF/USAdministrative Region boundary SCF/USAwraja Boundary UNICEF Save the Children Fund/UK (SCF/UK) PROGRAM DESCRIPTION SCF/UK has been working in Wollo region for many years. The Wello lowland area was seriously affected by drought and in the northern awrajas, the problem was compounded by civil strife. The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) requested that SCF/UK distribute dry rations to 139,000 beneficiaries (out of an estimated population of 173,000) in Raya and Kobo awraja, which were considered to have suffered a 100 percent crop loss. Though SCF/UK receives considerable amounts of grain from the British government, it requested 2,265 MT of ICSM from the US Government. Due to the current overriding needs for refugees coming from Sudan to western Illubabor region, 1,500 MT of ICSM has been transferred to UNHCR for distribution in that area. Calls forward for the SCF/UK program are handled through the SAVE/USA office in Connecticut. SCF/UK has its own trucking fleet and also uses rented trucks to transport food from the port of Assab. The SCF/UK system of nutritional surveillance has been extensively used in Ethiopia for monitoring of program effectiveness. PL 480 TITLE II INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL ICSM -- 1,065 1,065 Total -- 1,065 1,065 VALUE (000) Commodity -- $ 308.9 $ 308.9 Ocean Freight -- 133.1 133.1 Internal Transport .- 74.4 74.4 Total $ 516.4 $ 516.4 Save the Children, USA (SAVE) PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The Yifat/Timuga awraja of Shewa region, SAVE's operating area since 1985, was seriously drought-affected, with a 70 percent loss of maize and 70 percent of the sorghum crop damaged. The in-need figures rose to 210,000. SAVE reactivated its dry ration relief distribution network, which in the 1985-86 period reached up to 354,000 beneficiaries per month and succeeded in keeping all affected people in their homes. SAVE also established a model community health program and conducted food for work activities wherever feasible, including a project with the Afar pastoralists. Commodities are delivered to the port of Assab and transported to SAVE distribution sites by its own fleet of trucks and occasionally rented vehicles. PL 480 TITLE II INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL Wheat 14,250 5,000 19,250 Vegoil 569 300 869 NFDM 1,283 -- 1,283 ICSM -- 1,500 1,500 Total 16,102 6,800 22,902 VALUE (000) Commodity $2,199.9 $1,273.6 $3,473.5 Ocean Freight 1,300.3 600.0 1,900.3 Internal Transport 1,554.6* 528.9 2,083.5 Total $5,054.8 $2,402.5 $7,457.3 * A portion of this amount, $178.8, was obtained from FY 1987 budget. United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) PROGRAM DESCRIPTION UNICEF provides relief assistance by distributing donated goods through existing private voluntary or government agencies. Because of the shortage of supplementary food pledges for the drought relief effort in 1988, UNICEF requested a consignment of ICSM from the USG. The first tranche of 585 MT of ICSM, was delivered through ASsab port to Wollo region. The second tranche, 540 MT, was programmed for Gonder and southern Shewa regions. The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission implements the distributions for UNICEF. PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL ICSM -- 1,125 1,125 Total -- 1,125 1,125 VALUE (000) Commodity -- $ 326.3 $ 326.3 Ocean Freight -- 140.6 140.6 Internal Transport -- 69.2 69.2 Total $ 538.1 $ 538.1 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) PROGRAM DESCRIPTION UNHCR is the lead UN agency for coordinating refuge services. Starting in late 1987 and culminating in early 1988, a large influx of mostly young men came across the Sudanese border into South-Western Ethiopia (Illubabor region, Gambella awraga). Most of these early arrivals came in an extremely debilitated state. There are now 317,000 refugees in four camps, a number which will probably rise following expected influx increase after the rainy season. Africa's newest emergency refugee situation is on Ethiopia's eastern coast bordering Somalia. The civilian population of Northern Somalia. starting in early June, was caught in the crossfire between a secessionist movement and the Somali army. The refugees are at four sites, Harshin, Hartisheikh, Aware and Mishrak Gashamo. THe registered number of beneficiaries at Harshin/Hartisheikh are 237.000, at Aware, 105,000 and an unknown number remain at Mishrak Gashamo. The Somali refugees are mostly urban and well educated and have arrived in good nutritional shape with some of their own resources. The U.S. Government has already approved 12,000 MT of supplementary foods for refugee feeding in FY 1989. PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL ICSM -- 1,826 1,826 Lentils -- 500 500 Beans -- 998 998 Total -- 3,324 3,324 VALUE (000) Commodity -- 1,221.4 1,221.4 Ocean Freight -- 415.5 415.5 Internal Transport -- 435.4 435.4 Total -- 2,072.3 2,072.3 Figure 4-6:,UNHCR Illubabor: Gambela Hararge: Jigiga, Degeh Bur T., _S,- R -i is r I T7I N J .,, ",--I-...' 7 4. Men=?I & Gisliv .. ,, _I ..... AF I....U A- \A V.13 - n r IIi COTIrI, A . I r Reg ios & Awra s World Vision Relief Organization (WVRO) PROGRAM DESCRIPTION In 1985, World Vision operated feeding camps, providing services to the most severely malnourished as well as take home rations, in eight centers. In 1986 and 1987, WVRO shifted emphasis to food for work and agricultural rehabilitation. In 1988, WVRO once again distributed to the drought affected but partially on a food for work basis where feasible. WV operated from three of its original centers, Ajibar in Wollo; Omosheloko in Shewa; and Humbo in Sidamo. In addition, WVRO distributed in two new si'es, Mehal Meda in Shewa and Birbir in Gamo Gofa, for a total at all five sites, of 163,960 beneficiaries. To assist UNHCR with the current refugee crisis, WVRO has transferred 326 MT of ICSM from the FY 1988 program in addition to 74 MT of NFDM which are carryover commodities. The WVRO infrastructure in Ethiopia remains adequate with a large warehousing capacity and its own fleet of trucks. WVRO borrowed commodities against the approved metric tonnage to initiate distributions in early 1988. Commodities are received at the port of Assab. PL 48. TITLE H AND SECTION 416 INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase Second Phase TOTAL Wheat -- 11,600 11,600 Vegoil -- 670 670 ICSM -- 824 824 Total -- 13,094 13,094 VALUE (000) Commodity -- $ 2,211.1 $ 2,211.1 Ocean Freight -- 1,056.8 1,056.8 Internal Transport -- 1,367.5 1,367.5 Total $ 4,635.4 $ 4,635.4 Figure 4-7: WORLD VISION RELIEF ORGANIZATION (WVRO) Areas of Operation Isob )TIGRY_, Wee o WELO WEL~GA S flHE rA ILUBABOR bato BALE International boundary Administrative Region boundary Awraja Boundary 40 JOINT RELIEF PARTNERSHIP (JRP) Program Description The Joint Relief Partnership is a consortium composed of six member agencies: Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat (ECS), Hararghe Catholic Secretariat (HCS), Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC). The partner agencies take part in relief distributions in all of the most seriously affected regions: Eritrea, Tigray, Harerghe, Wollo, Shoa, Siamo and Gonder regions. CRS acts as the consignee for USG commodities, handling logistical and reporting requirements. Commodities approved by the US Government are targeted largely (64 percent) to the northern regions of Tigray and Eritrea. JRP reached a maximum of 700,000 in Eritrea, when it expanded to serve ex-ICRC beneficiaries. In Tigray, only 60-65 percent of the projected 506,000 could be reached due to security constraints. Total beneficiaries receiving distributions in 1988 are estimated at a peak of 1,546,236. The ration package and registration procedures are standardized within JRP. JRP centers monitor the nutritional status of children by height and weight, and use the data to determine program participants. In June, USG wheat flour (5,000 MT) originally approved for ICRC, was transferred to JRP for distribution in Eritrea and Tigray. PL 480 TITLE II AND SECTION 416 INPUTS Fiscal Year 1988 COMMODITIES (MTS) First Phase* Second Phase TOTAL Bulgur 8,700 -- 8,700 Wheat 51,100 50,000 101,100 Vegoil 4,325 3,600 7,925 NGDM 4,800 -- 4,800 ICSM -- 4,000 4,000 Wheat Flour -- 5,000 5,000 Total 68,925 62,600 131,525 VALUE (000) Commodity $11,127.6 $11,083.2 $22,210.8 Ocean Freight 6,060.6 5,325.0 11,385.6 Internal Transport 9,244.4** 6,624.3 15,868.7 Total $26,432.6 $23,032.5 $49,465.10 * Includes 10,025 MT approved on August 25, 1987, which is part of the FY 1988 shipments. ** A portion of the internal transport costs, $1,176.5, was obtained from the FY 1987 budget. 'K I Ilararge CathiiLla S-!cretl.,riat: Ilararge (Wiebera , D~ire Dawn. Ila r er Zi r iya) 'reg-iler atad Ilia Iga Si!iali! . II.±rvi;hcte ,*Ila ikocli and Biicajira. '"'.1- I'tLiua ca htal i ya) iflao (Ilu la y ita ) 5-1t,~ FtIs iop tatt (Jr~lod.lu Chutrch: G.,it Jc r (h1.1 Guy iii L I(1, Wa I Mic I ali. lir Y.1 ur ~:L: 11' U.- I..Air II - N ~ II.. Ti- N j Lu-I o - Aw ANNEX 5 Bibliography ANNEX 5 Bibliography Beyerne, Mitik. 1988, Information System for Planning and Evaluation of National Disaster Prevention and Preparedness. ONCCP conference on Disaster Preparedness, Addis Ababa, 5-8 December. CRDA Meeting Report #50 CRDA Meeting Report #66 CRDA, February 1989. Evaluation Report of the 1988 CRDA General Rehabilitation Program Addis Ababa. FAO, 1971. Human Nutritional Requirements, Rome. Tesfaye, Haile. 1987. A Case Study of Seasonal Forecast in Ethiopia, in Proceedings of the WMO Regional Association 1 (Africa) Seminar Modern Weather Forecasting. Geneva, 30 November-4 December 1987. Hurni, Hans. 1987. Ecological Issues in the Creation of Famine in Ethiopia, ONCCP, 5-8 December 1988. Nieberg, Phillip. Report of a Nutrition and Health consultancy to the Food For Peace office, May 29-June 17, 1988. Solomon, Haile. Appropriate Institutional Structures for Disaster Preparedness Development, ONCCP conference on Disaster Preparedness, Addis Ababa, 5-8 December 1988, in Melaku Ayalew, 1988, The Famine Early Warning System. UN EPPG, January 1989, Report on Ethiopian Relief Operations, Addis Ababa. UN EPPG, February 1989, 1989 Annual Report on Emergency Relief Operations in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. UN EPPG, August 1988, Famine Fact Sheet Wodajo, Tsegaye. September 1984. Agrometeoroligical Activities in Ethiopia. NOAA/CEAS, Columbia, Missouri.