ethiopia emergency food aid — Donor fatigue. Ethiopia is competing for international humanitarian emergency funds with Syria and Yemen. At a time when a fraction of the $1.4 billion it needs to combat its drought crisis materialized, Ethiopia has no option but to swallow its pride and accept the much needed aid from least expected and sometimes from historical rival/enemy states such as Egypt. (Picture: WFP\Melese Awoke)

By Star Africa,

The government of Egypt has donated $1 million in emergency aid to the World Food Program to assist drought affected people in Ethiopia, WFP said in a statement last Friday.

This contribution comes at absolutely critical time when resources are urgently needed to support the enormous efforts of the government of Ethiopia and provide food assistance to millions of drought affected people in the country, John Aylieff, WFP’s Country Director and Representative in Ethiopia said.

With this contribution, WFP will be able to buy more than 1,700 metric tons of food to provide family rations of cereals, pulses and vegetable oil to some people hit hardest by the drought in pastoralist areas, the Country Director said.

More than 10 million people in Ethiopia have been affected by one of the worst droughts in decades.

The statement said the emergency aid will reach out to 100,000 people affected by drought in the Somali state of Ethiopia.

WFP is working with the government of Ethiopia to reach out to 7.6 million affected people. WFP said it urgently requires $350 million to continue food distributions beyond April.

Drought-Stricken Ethiopia Begs Money for Seeds

By Katy Migiro | for Reuters,

Millions of Ethiopians, hit by the country’s worst drought in 50 years, need seeds to plant food crops and animal fodder during the current spring rains, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

Planting for the March to May rains, known as the belg, is already delayed, it said, as families have eaten their seeds or exhausted them through successive failed plantings.

“FAO urgently needs $13 million by the end of March to support more than 600,000 of the worst affected people,” FAO’s country representative Amadou Allahoury Diallo said.

“It’s critical that we’re able to respond quickly and robustly to reboot agriculture now before the drought further decimates the food security and livelihoods of millions.”

Some 7.5 million farmers and herders need aid to produce maize, sorghum, teff and wheat, as well as livestock feed, according to Ethiopia’s Bureau of Agriculture, it said.

Farmers need seeds not just for the current rains but also for the summer meher rains, which are due to start in June and produce 85 per cent of Ethiopia’s food supplies.

The hunger crisis is predicted to worsen until the harvest begins in September.

Ethiopia’s government and the United Nations have asked for $1.4 billion to feed 10.2 million Ethiopians – the third largest appeal globally after Syria and Yemen.

An additional 7.9 million chronically food insecure people are receiving rations through the Ethiopian government’s donor-supported Productive Safety Net Programme.

Funding shortages mean food aid is in short supply and malnutrition will increase dramatically if donor money runs out in May, the United Nations has said.

Some 435,000 children are expected to become severely malnourished in 2016, which means they risk death without therapeutic treatment.

Cows and goats are a critical source of milk for hungry families, but many have stopped producing it.

Hundreds of thousands of livestock have already died and the remaining animals are becoming weak and thin, FAO said.

FAO is buying weak sheep and goats for slaughter and providing their meat to hungry families.