ETHIOPIA: FOOD Emergency appeal n° MDRET005 GLIDE n° DR-2008-000043-ETH INSECURITY 19 August 2008 This revised Appeal seeks CHF 8,157,607 (USD 7,920,006 or EUR 5,035,560) in cash, kind or services to support the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) to assist 76,075 beneficiaries for 6 months. CHF 300,000 (USD 288,462 or EUR 187,500) was allocated from the Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support this operation. Unearmarked funds to replenish DREF are encouraged. Furthermore, this emergency operation has received bilateral contributions from ECHO, through Finnish Red Cross and Austrian Red Cross (EUR 2.7 mill) and the Austrian Development Agency (EUR 200,000). Photo Above: Food distribution in process Based on the situation, this revised appeal responds to a request from ERCS to include the population of neighbouring Damot Gale who live under the same precarious situation as the population of Damot Pulasa and to provide support to 15,215 (7,200 in Damot Gale and 8,015 households in Damot Pulasa) with the total beneficiary of 76,075 (36,000 in Damot Gale and 40,075 in Damot Pulasa). This revised appeal is intended to address emergency food and relief assistance, early recovery activities as well as improving access to safe water and hygiene promotion. This operation is expected to be implemented over 6 months time The first two months’ emergency relief assistance have already been distributed in June and July 2008 in Damot Pulasa while distribution in Damot Gale is expected to start in August 2008. The operation will therefore be completed by November 30, 2008. A final report will be made available by 29 February 2009 (three months after the end of the operation). The operation will take place in two woredas of Damot Gale and Damot Pulasa, Wolayita Zone Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional (SNNPR) State. The two woredas were integral part of the Damot Gale woreda which was bifurcated into Damot Gale and Damot Pulasa following the recent administrative restructuring. A team of experts from ERCS were deployed to the area to appraise the situation on the ground and report back to National Headquarter. Thus, this update is based upon the findings and recommendations of the assessment team. Continuous update will be made to this revised appeal based on the real situations in the ground as deemed necessary. Due to the available funding not being sufficient to cover all the targeted beneficiaries for the entire intended operational time frame, the society may be forced to reduce the operational period from 6 months to 4 months for Damot Pulasa (Damot Gale will remain at 4-month duration) and to reduce the both the quantity and type of food items to be distributed. On the contrary, should long-term funding be available for food security, livelihoods and recovery programming, the appeal may be extended in time into 2009, following agricultural calendar. <click here to view the attached Revised Emergency Appeal Budget; or here to view contact details> The situation The total failure of the Belg rain (Mid January to end of February) which accounts for 20 percent of the total grain crop production of the country coupled with the soaring inflation (on average throughout the country, maize price as the main staple food has increased by 187 percent between April 2007 and April 20081) caused severe food shortage affecting most parts of the country. This situation led the Government of Ethiopia to issue a Humanitarian Requirement Plan on 10 April 2008 to the tune of USD 68 Million to assist 2.2 million people. In July 2008, drought affected population reached 4.5 million (according to government) while UN Agencies estimate that the number is significantly higher2. The World Food Programme (WFP) caseload for August 2008 relief distribution is 4.6 million and 5.7 PSNP beneficiaries in drought-affected areas). In order to come to the rescue of the vulnerable population, the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) has conducted two assessments in the SNNPR in Wolayita and Sidama zones. In addition, a joint Regional Disaster Response Team (RDRT) and ERCS team have carried out assessments in Bale Zone and Moyale Woreda in Oromiya Region. The methodology used for the assessments were: key-informant interviews, household interviews, community targeting (in which the youth and women were active participants) and secondary information obtained from the Zonal and Woreda level offices. Based upon the findings of the assessment teams, ERCS decided to intervene in Damot Pulasa Woreda and Damot Gale, Wolayita Zone, SNNPR, through the provision of Emergency food aid. To mobilize the necessary fund, preliminary emergency appeal was launched on 14 May 2008. Until response is given to the appeal ERCS has withdrawn Birr, 1,850,000 (approximately CHF 185,000) from its coffer to procure the necessary food items for distribution to the vulnerable. Over the past two months situations worsened and the conditions of the population in the intervention area deteriorated to the extent of even affected households becoming unable to feed themselves. Thus, it was found necessary to include additional 7,200 households from Damot Gale in the list of beneficiaries. Damot Pulasa and Damot Gale are two of the 12 woredas under Wolayita Zone in SNNPR. The two woredas form the north-eastern part of the zone and bordering on Kambata in the north, Hadiya in the north, and Boloso Sore and Kindo Koyisha Woredas in the west and Sodo Zuria Woreda in the south. The woredas lie entirely within the Woina Dega agro-ecological zone. The woredas have bimodal distribution of rain fall, Damot Pulasa and Damot Gale are predominantly Belg growing areas. The short rainy season called Belg extends from mid January to first week of February and during this season, maize, millet and beans are cultivated. Main Meher rain, which extends from mid July to end of September, is another major cropping season with maize, beans millet, Teff and wheat cultivated. An extension of the Meher is the Sappian rain, (which occurs in October) a very short period of shower used to produce root crops, like cassava, sweet potato and Irish potato. The production from the Sappian is used to bridge the food gap until the main Meher harvest which is usually realised early January. The population of the two woredas combined stands at 304,296 (180,758 Damot Gale and 123,538 Damot Pulasa). Like other woredas of Wolayita they have one of the highest population densities of more than 370 persons per square kilometre, and reaching up to 600 persons per square kilometres in some Kebeles. The population is engaged in mixed agriculture, crop growing and livestock tending. Field findings reveal that there are more livestock per households than the available pasture warrants such that close to 40 percent of livestock feed is purchased from markets. The mismatch between land and population equation has by far remained the major contributing factor for the presence of endemic food insecurity. Both woredas are considered to be the most affected within Wolayita Zone according to Government reports. The limited agricultural land has not been able to reasonably support the progressively increasing human and livestock population while on the other hand 1 WFP Ethiopia Market Report for End of April 2008, dated on 15 May 2008. 2 WFP External Sitrep: “Ethiopia Emergency report on the drought”, Weekly Situation Report No. 38 dated 5 August 2008. 2 the area of cultivable land per households is constantly decreasing there by weakening the capacity of rural households to produce enough food for consumption. The woredas are some of the food deficit areas in the zone and are able to produce only 50 to 60 percent of their food requirements even in the best of times. The gap between food production and food requirement is always bridged through food purchase from markets outside the woreda and through external food aid. In 2007/2008 the problem of food insecurity was caused by several factors. The flood and water logging caused by the heavy Meher rains of 2007 destroyed most of the crops such as maize, millet, wheat, haricot beans and Teff root crops (root crops cuttings are planted during Meher rains mainly in August with seed multiplication taking place during the Sappian rains) in the field. Secondly, there was failure of rain in Sappian (an extension of the Meher but which is very important for the production of root crops another staple crop of the woredas at par with Maize). In 2008, before the farmers could recuperate from the food shortage caused by the excessive flood of preceding year, shortage of rain during the Sapian and total failure of the Berg rain occurred, and as a consequence farmers were not able to plant maize, millet and beans resulting in acute shortage of food in the woredas. Hence, alternating periods of very heavy rain fall (which was followed by devastating flood) and long period of drought (in Sappian and Belg) exacerbated the already existing food insecurity in the woredas. Grain prices in Wolayita zone (central Sodo market) escalated by more than 330 percent from April 2007 to April 20083 and this was beyond the reach of the poor households with many families going hungry on a daily basis. An indicator of the escalation of prices is the joint decision by the Government of Ethiopia and WFP to provide food assistance to Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) beneficiaries for the next six months due to the diminishing purchasing power of the cash allowance4. On the other hand, the declining of livestock prices and decline in daily labour wage have seriously weakened the copping capacity of the people.