ETHIOPIA, UN, HUMANITARIAN PARTNERS APPEAL FOR ASSISTANCE FOR 2005

 

ADDIS ABABA, 23 December (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) -- The Ethiopian Government, the United Nations and humanitarian partners today appealed for 387,482 tonnes of food valued at approximately $159 million for an estimated 2.2 million needy people, and $112 million of non-food assistance to meet emergency humanitarian needs in 2005.

For the first time in the history of appeals in Ethiopia, an effort has been made to separately handle the chronic and acute caseloads.  The 2005 Humanitarian Appeal is expected to attend to the acute needs of the unpredictable caseload while the Productive Safety Net Programme will tackle longer-term food security needs.  From January 2005, about 2.2 million people will be provided with emergency food assistance under the Appeal while more than 5 million chronically food insecure people will be provided assistance in the form of cash or food for labour intensive public works.

In addition to food assistance, critical non-food interventions in Agriculture, Health and Nutrition, Water and Sanitation should be given equal importance, especially in drought-affected parts of the country.  The Appeal also attempts to mainstream cross-sectoral elements such as capacity-building, coordination, gender, child protection and HIV/AIDS in these sectors.  Emergency needs in non-food sectors are now defined with the aim to save lives and protect livelihoods threatened by both acute and chronic emergency situations.

The Health and Nutrition response will mainly be undertaken through, among other things, the Enhanced Outreach Strategy (EOS) that is going to take place twice a year targeting 6.8 million children aged 0 to 59 months with measles vaccinations and vitamin A supplements.  Health and nutrition requires $83.7 million for this programme and other interventions including malaria, meningitis, reproductive health, acute malnutrition, diarrhoea and other communicable diseases.

The prime objective for Water and Sanitation is to provide access to improved water and sanitation services for an estimated 2.1 million people in Afar, Amhara, Dire Dawa, Harari, Oromiya, SNNP, Somali and Tigray Regions, at a cost of $10 million.

In the Agricultural sector, $10.8 million is required to cover costs of emergency interventions in both crop and livestock sub sectors.  As additional $1 million is needed to cover capacity building and coordination activities.

Six million is necessary to provide the means for improving the Government of Ethiopia’s, in collaboration with United Nations agencies and non-governmental organization s, disaster response capacity and requirements for enhancing coordination and information flows are valued at $1.5 million.  One of the priorities for humanitarian action in 2005 will be to address many of the recommendations laid out in the joint “Evaluation of the Response to the 2002 - 2003 Emergency in Ethiopia”.

The full report is available at www.ocha-eth.org.

For further information, please contact:  DPPC -- 52 92 62/52 92 59; FAO -- 51 72 33; OCHA -- 51 37 25/44 41 62; UNICEF -- 44 43 64; WFP -- 51 51 88/09 20 19 76; WHO –- 445223.

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