The Government of Ethiopia is working extensively to expedite the delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need, according to the National Disaster Risk Management Commission.
Briefing the media today, the National Disaster Risk Management Commissioner, Shiferaw Telekemariam noted ‘we dispatched the joint statement last night together with the UN Resident Coordinator to address (the humanitarian need) where we are currently and where we will be heading in the coming three months as well.’
Climate change is becoming a major threat to all kinds of inclusive development in the nation because more and more people that can be productive in their own backyard and agricultural practices are being affected, he added.
‘We have been going through serious drought cycles before last year and that was the consecutive fifth cycles of rain that failed; so those who are fully dependent on the rain did not produce anything at all,’he recalled.
The drought which occurred in the southern, southeastern and the north eastern
parts of the country, affected 11 million of the population and this was a heavy blow to the nation, according to the commissioner.
On other hand, there are close to 4 million drought affected beneficiaries who require humanitarian relief and most of them are based in Amhara, Tigray, Afar as well as in some pockets of Oromia, Southern Ethiopia and Central Ethiopia, he said.
Moreover, there were also challenges of flooding, which has affected about 1.5 million of our citizens out of whom more than 670,000 of them were displaced.
‘We are now preparing ourselves for the fourth round, which covers from January to March. In this period, we will be able to cover like 6.6 million beneficiaries and both ourselves, and our partners, particularly the WFP and CRS/JEOP will be taking part in this,’ he pointed out.
The partners support is basically coming from the USAID support structure, he said.
Moreover, he elaborated that the overarching challenge is that we are not sure that the humanitarian relief supply is a
vailable on time in partnership with all the humanitarian relief stakeholders.
The government is providing the lion’s share, as it is responsible to its citizens, the commissioner reiterated.
‘But there is also a global accountability and responsibility that donors as well as the UN partners also play their part. So far, both WFP and CRS/JEOP account only 20 percent of what they have been doing earlier.’
Noting that it’s the country that should shoulder responsibility to cover the remaining gap that was earlier covered by these partners, he said that the most important ones are the communities and the regional states themselves; they have to do their own share and contribute something as per their own mandate.
Talking of the response of UN agencies to the humanitarian assistance, Shiferaw said they are doing their level best and added given the magnitude of the problem, it requires more coordinated and robust efforts including contribution, and bringing more resources so that the responses will be fully r
escuing all those who require support.
‘If we can collaborate, if stakeholders are able to mobilize more resources on top of what the government is doing as its basic mandate, then we will be able to reverse the serious impact that’s coming into picture,’ he underlined.
Moreover, the commissioner said the need for making plan for long term interventions.
‘The drought is recurring, the flooding is recurring and it’s now somehow exhausting the coping mechanism of our people in this affected area. What it means is we need to design, in addition to humanitarian aid, the development wings of such areas as well, ‘he indicated.
He also noted that the commission will work together with regional states and relevant sectors to address the challenge in long term, putting in place durable solution to self-sufficiently sustain humanitarian requirements on our own.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency