Over $2bn humanitarian assistance required to drought-affected citizens in Ethiopia: UN OCHA

Addis Ababa, March 16, 2023 (FBC) – More than 2 billion USD is needed to provide a humanitarian response to citizens affected by the drought in Ethiopia, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In the report issued by UN OCHA on the drought situation in Ethiopia, it is stated that a severe drought has occurred in the southern and eastern parts of Ethiopia due to insufficient rains for five consecutive seasons. Entire communities are without sufficient food reserves to survive until the next harvest in the next few months.

As a result, 24 million people currently live in drought-affected areas and 11 million people are estimated to be food insecure. About 6.85 million livestock deaths were registered since late 2021, the report indicates.

Dire and complex conditions are expected to further drive the humanitarian needs of the drought-affected population well into 2023, thus requiring urgent funding and a strengthened response, the report warns.

2023, Humanitarian organizations aim to assist more than 13 million Ethiopians in drought-affected areas with life-saving assistance, including food, nutrition, health, and protection services this year. For this to happen, the 2023 Ethiopian Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) requires an estimated $US2.05 billion for the drought response out of a total ask of $US 3.99. Donors must mobilize and commit urgently as the time is now, if not overdue, for humanitarian actors to scale up their response to save lives, OCHA mentioned.

Last year, according to OCHA, an estimated $US928 million was secured out of the $US1.66 billion required for the drought response as of end of December 2022, inclusive of funding from OCHA pooled fund mechanisms namely, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund (EHF).

Hence, UN OCHA called on humanitarian partners to provide assistance to support the most vulnerable populations across the highly drought-affected areas in the eastern and southern parts of the country, with five out of nine clusters having assisted only 50 or less percent of the people targeted due to insufficient resources and access challenges in some areas in 2022.