Key Issues
The scabies outbreak in Amhara region – a highly contagious disease - needs urgent cross-sector intervention.
Acknowledging the need for a rapid scale up of nutrition intervention, OCHA’s Humanitarian Response Fund called on all interested and eligible partners to apply for funding. At present, nutrition partners are only responding in 89 (of 142) humanitarian hotspot priority one woredas and 40 (of 189) priority two woredas.
Funding for humanitarian commodities for early 2016 is urgently needed now, to take account of three to five months procurement and transportation lead time.
Ethiopia is battling its worst drought in decades: The impact of the failed spring belg rains was compounded by the arrival of the El Niño weather conditions that weakened summer kiremt rains that feed 80 to 85 per cent of the country. This greatly expanded food insecurity, malnutrition and devastated livelihoods across six affected regions of the country. The level of acute need across virtually all humanitarian sectors has already exceeded levels seen in the Horn of Africa drought of 2011 and is projected to be far more severe throughout an 8-month period in 2016.