BY DARGIE KAHSAY
The Horn of Africa, which always faces periodic drought, is currently struggling severe ongoing drought. The drought which is affecting the region since the mid of 2021, is widespread and causing serious humanitarian crisis in the region, mainly in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. The drought particularly affects badly the pastoralists which are livestock-owning community.
The drought has killed and continues to kill hundreds of thousands of wild and domestic animals. The region, which is rich in livestock resource, currently is experiencing devastating livelihoods since the basic income-generating resource of the community; the livestock resource is shockingly devastated. Even the survivors of livestock are under serious threat due to water and fodder shortage.
According to reports, over 13 million people in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are experiencing the severe drought with different levels of impacts. Especially, the drought is badly affecting the pastoralist society within the three countries. The livelihood of the pastoralist community is dependent on the livestock resource and the income generating from the livestock.
Since the region is experiencing among worst droughts in its history, tens of millions of people are in severe crisis and waiting urgent assistances for their survival and to save their cattle from perishing. The survival and the livelihood of the pastoralist community are on its livestock resource.
In addition to perishing the livestock resource and affecting the environment, the drought is continuing threatening food security for millions in the drought recurring region. An article published at Relief web this week stated that over thirteen million people are in need of urgent assistance and during the mid of 2022, the region is projected to become one of the top three emergencies in the world.
According to the article published citing Mercy Corps’ projection, the number of aid dependent people in the region is expected to increase to 25 million by the middle of 2022 in the region, which makes it nearly doubling the current people in need of urgent assistance. This indicates that the response needs both urgent assistances and long-term investments to control both the current impacts of the drought and the periodic drought that is hitting the region recurrently. The responsibility lies on both the regional countries and the international community since the region’s periodic drought is climate change driven.
According to the article published at the Relief Web, an early response to droughts happening in the Horn of Africa is unsatisfactory. Failure to respond timely and less attention to control the drought during the early periods makes it hard to minimize the devastating impacts of the drought on the livelihoods of societies at the grassroots level and at the national economy in large.
Due to failure to timely respond to the impacts of the droughts during the 1984/85 drought in Ethiopia, hundreds of thousands people were dead and millions displaced from their homes. Even in 2011, according to Relief Web, delayed response to drought in the region led to the death of up to 260 thousand people, half of them children under five in the region. This indicated that early prevention actions to recurrent drought are vital to minimize the loss of life, its impacts on the national economy and the livelihood of every household.
Evaluating the past response experiences to the droughts happened in the region, the article warned that time is running to respond to the current devastating drought and calls to continue business as usual response to the harsh drought. Smart investments should rapidly apply within weeks and months to use the limited time for proper action timely after the drought becomes out of control.
Governments, local and international aid agencies are calling the world to respond early with adequate responses since the early period of the drought. But, still, the response to the continued drought is limited and unsatisfactory. Especially, the livestock and other animal resource didn’t get attention though the respective countries are struggling to provide supports to the affected areas both for the people and the livestock. The countries in the region are also providing both water and food to the wildlife in the affected areas since the wild animals are also seriously affecting by the drought.
This shows that, the impact of the drought is multidimensional and needs multidimensional response to control the impacts. The drought happens during the period that the countries are struggling to withdraw from the impacts of COVID-19 that hits the world economy badly. Though the countries with few donor organizations are working to manage the impacts of the drought, it is becoming beyond the capacity of these struggles and needs further interventions from the international community. Integrated, fast and multidimensional response is needed to protect lives and livelihoods from the international community.
Ethiopia, among the countries of the region hit by the drought is investing its maximum efforts to provide necessary supports to the drought affected areas of the country. The response includes humanitarian aid, provision of water and transporting fodder and straw for the livestock. The wildlife in the affected areas also needs provision of water since the areas have become dry due to the drought. All these responses need huge resource and it is difficult to manage it with the economic capacity of developing countries which is affected by COVID-19.
The community at the grassroots needs urgent humanitarian aid and capacity building investment to change the livelihood and widening its income generating sources. The pastoralist community, which repeatedly is affected by the droughts, needs all rounded supports to build resilient to recurrent drought.
Ethiopia’s response and investment is both providing immediate support to the current drought and to control the recurrent drought sustainably with further investments in irrigation based agriculture and with its national green legacy project. Both efforts of Ethiopia need supports from the international community to control the current and recurrent drought that hit the region.
So far, Ethiopia’s green legacy initiative has helped the country to plant over 18 billion trees across the country. The national green legacy initiative aims to fend off climate change that is the major cause for the recurrent drought in the region. In addition to its efforts to maximize the forest coverage nationwide, Ethiopia is sharing seedling with the neighboring countries in the region.
In addition, Ethiopia is expanding irrigation in the lowland and semi-lowland areas. The goal of the nation’s expansion of irrigation aims both in import substitution of agricultural products and expanding agricultural activities to the pastoralist society so as to change the way of life of the pastoralist community. Such wide national investment needs international and regional supports for its successful achievement of the goal.
Building regional and local resilience of countries should get attention in addition to providing aid after drought gets worse. The investments of the developing countries in climate action, green energy production, agriculture and other community based investments should be supported by the international community to build resilient to periodic drought.
According to the projection, if continued and urgent responses implemented to control the current drought in this region, the 13 million people waiting urgent assistance are expected to increase to 25 million within few months. Hence, the international community should urgently and jointly respond to control the continued impacts of the drought, though it is too late to control the drought itself.
Parallel to providing short-term assistance to respond to the current drought impacts, the international community should work hand-in-hand with the countries of the region to build drought resilient communities.
The Ethiopian Herald March 22/2022
