SEVERE SHORTAGE IN FUNDING FOR DJIBOUTI DROUGHT

NEW YORK, 6 June (OCHA) -- Six weeks into the flash appeal for $7.5 million for drought relief in Djibouti, donors have failed to provide funding for 95 per cent of needs, leaving the agricultural, food and coordination sectors of the appeal wholly unfunded.

The appeal, launched by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on 27 April, is aimed at combating the severe food crisis threatening three of six rural zones in the country following three consecutive failed rainy seasons and worsening drought.  Delayed rains and erratic rainfall have been insufficient to allow the replenishment of water catchments or the regeneration of pastures.  Meanwhile, pastoralists from Djibouti and neighbouring areas in Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been forced to continue seasonal grazing in coastal Djibouti areas, which has exhausted most rural grazing areas.  All water catchments in the north-west and south-east pastoral zones are nearly dry.  Most pastoralists have lost the majority of their livestock, and remaining animals are in poor condition.

Among the requirements highlighted under the OCHA appeal, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has appealed for just under $4 million for emergency livestock feeding and animal health projects; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for $350,000 for emergency coordination activities and support for government disaster coordination structures; United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for $300,000 for water and sanitation projects; UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) for $295,000 to provide a number of emergency health-care services; and the World Food Programme (WFP) for $2.6 million for emergency food and nutrition assistance.

Only two donors have responded thus far.  Germany has agreed to fund UNICEF’s operations in the water and sanitation sector, while the United States has promised $100,000 to the children’s organization for the health sector.  However, those contributions amount to only 5.3 per cent of total needs.  None of the projects envisaged within the agricultural, coordination and support, or food sectors has received any funding, and the United States’ contribution covers just 34 per cent of total need within the health sector.

Six weeks into the appeal process, a newly-released nutrition and health assessment shows that malnutrition among children and women is widespread in drought-affected areas, with moderate acute malnutrition rates high in communities dependent on food aid.  The assessment shows that the main health problems among children are diarrhoea, fever, respiratory diseases and measles, all of which are illnesses often associated with malnutrition.  Chronic malnutrition or stunting was also found to be very high -- over 40 per cent -- in all communities surveyed.  The cumulative effect impact of continuous droughts has led to household food insecurity, high rates of morbidity in children, and high rates of anaemia in women and children.

For further information, please call:  Stephanie Bunker, OCHANY, tel.:  917 367 5126, mobile:   917 892 1679; Elizabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, tel.:  41 22 917 2653, mobile:  41(0) 79 473 4570.

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