Ethiopia National Food Reserve Shrinks to Record Low
Mitiku Kassa, state minister for Disaster Food and Security
Sector addressing jurnalists.
21 October, 2008
(Addis Fortune) The ongoing drought in Ethiopia, which many in the government, including the Deputy Prime Minister have repeatedly claimed is under control, has left the country with only 50,000tn of National Food Reserve stock.
The drought has already consumed 350,000tn of the compulsory lower limit 400,000tn of food reserve that the country should have at anytime.
Government has been left with no choice but to cut the monthly rations of people affected by the drought by one third.
"Due to shortage of resources, the people affected, mainly those in Somali Regional State, have not received full rations since July 2008," Matios Hunde, head of Disaster Management and Food Security Sector (DMFSS) with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) told donors and journalists on Tuesday, October 14, 2008.
In June 2008, the Deputy Prime Minister, Addisu Legesse, told Parliament that the drought was "under control" and there were about 4.6 million people affected, while international media reported the figure to be about six million.
Addisu referred to this as "Fabrications of NGO's working in the areas" reported as affected.
However, three months later, the government announced that the number of people affected had reached 6.4 million, excluding the estimated five million under the Safety Net programme.
Coupled with the failure of the international community to respond and shortage of food items in the local market, the government has been forced to rely on the national food reserve.
According to the revised humanitarian assistance for 2008, prepared jointly by the government and its partners, the number of people dependent on relief food and non-food assistance has increased from 2.2 million in April to 4.6 million in July. The figure has climbed to 6.4 million in the latest appeal.
This represents the findings of the Rapid Verification Assessment and Desk Review Exercise conducted by the multi-agency early warning group.
According to the group's assessment, the 325 million dollars total food and non-food requirement demand in the previously revised appeal to cater for the estimated beneficiaries has not been fully secured yet.
"Only 65pc of this amount has been obtained from the donor community," Fidelle Sarassaro, United Nations humanitarian coordinator to Ethiopia told Fortune.
The government was thus forced to fill the gap from its reserve, which is currently below 50,000tn.
"It is an all time level low, hence severely curtailing loan access from the stock," the revised humanitarian requirement document of government and its partners revealed.
Mitiku Kassa, the new state minister for Disaster Management and Food Security Sector (DMFSS) of MoARD, has no other option but to order humanitarian agencies and relief workers under his office to lower the humanitarian assistance ration by one third.
Accordingly, the monthly per capita relief ration rates for cereals was reduced from 15Kg to 10Kg, oil from 0.45Kg to 0.3Kg, pulse from 1.5Kg to one kilogramme and blended food from 4.5Kg to three kilogrammes. On top of this, the available scarce resources have been prioritized for hotspot weredas, according to the document.
The newly revised humanitarian appeal document puts the total value of food and non-food requirements for the estimated number of affected people for the remaining months of the year at 265.6 million dollars, 218 million dollars of which is for food requirement.
Health, nutrition, water, sanitation, as well as agriculture and livestock are categorized under the non-food needs and they would consume 39.7 million dollars, according to the document.
The most acutely food insecure areas are Somali, east and south east Oromia, most parts of Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and eastern Amhara. The latter is a new entrant to the list of hardest hit areas.
The estimated number of children that have been identified as requiring monthly therapeutic feeding until the end of 2008 has increased to 84,200 from 75,000 in the earlier report.
Unlike many in the government top positions, Mitiku seems skeptical of being able to control the situation.
"It will be very difficult to overcome the situation without your involvement," he told the humanitarian agencies.