Key Issues
New study shows indebted households in drought affected areas will continue to sell their assets including livestock unless humanitarian assistance continues throughout 2016 and beyond
Acute watery diarrhoea response is urgently needed to numerous at-risk Ethiopian schools.
NDRMC alerted humanitarian partners to respond to the possible consequences of flooding due to controlled release of water from Gilgel Gibe dam in downstream communities
Drought exacerbated by El Niño, combined with extensive flooding, disease outbreaks and the disruption of basic public services, continue to have a negative impact on the lives and livelihoods of 9.7 million Ethiopians. Overall food security and agricultural production remain severely affected, with cascading effects on livelihoods, nutrition, health, water, sanitation, education and other sectors.
Study shows long-term negative impacts for rural households indebted due to drought Field notes by the Agriculture Knowledge, Learning, Documentation and Policy (AKLDP), a five-year project of USAID Ethiopia, indicates that the impact of the 2015 El Nino episode will remain for rural farming communities in southern and eastern Tigray. Harvest and livestock losses increased substantially and debt values increased by 60 percent in Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) households and 57 per cent in non-PSNP households, taking the total outstanding debts to US$271 in southern and US$ 310 eastern Tigray. According to the study, households are likely to continue to incur additional borrowing from different sources to meet their basic food needs. Indebtedness is a major concern for most households and many see the effects of the 2015 El Niño drought continuing throughout 2016, and potentially into 2017 and beyond. For more on this: http://www.agri-learningethiopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/AKLDP-Indebtedness-study.pdf