NOTE: the following entries are presented in the language in which they were written

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Monday, January 4, 2010

Food Aid awaiting distribution - Shinile, Ethiopia [photo credit: Nicolas Moyer]

If people are hungry, give them food.  That’s what first comes to mind, and sometimes it’s what needs to be done.  In extreme situations, emergency nutrition needs to be provided – particularly to malnourished children – along with much needed water.  But this is a temporary measure, or at least it should be.  Unfortunately, drought is becoming dangerously common in Ethiopia.  And that raises questions about how to deal with such chronic needs. 

Building the resilience of communities before disasters hit can keep them from being pushed off the edge into life-threatening malnutrition and slipping even deeper into poverty.  This approach is more respectful of the people affected and in the long run it is even much cheaper for donors.  It’s time we rethink food aid.

Twenty-five years after the famous 1984 famine, people are still going hungry in East Africa.  The international response to food crises is still dominated by importing food aid – mainly from the US.  This helps save lives, in emergencies, but we could all be doing much more to support communities to prepare for droughts in advance, so they can withstand them on their own, without expensive food aid from the West. 

Without a doubt, people need help now.  According to UN estimates, 23 million people need water, food, health and sanitation services across East Africa.  When people need help, we can save lives with immediate support.  The members of the Humanitarian Coalition are doing just that, with programs that are providing for the basic needs of people in the worst drought-affected areas.  They are helping millions of people in Ethiopia alone. 

But the people receiving this help don’t want to be in this desperate situation, not today and not ever again.  So we need to think ahead and work with these folks towards longer-term solutions.  And make no mistake, there are solutions.

In Shinile, a district in the Somali region of Ethiopia, Oxfam is helping communities harvest rainfall and access groundwater to last them through the dry seasons.  In these areas, where food and income are scarce, Oxfam is using a cash or food in exchange for work on such projects.  It is an approach widely used by other agencies too.  CARE and Save the Children also provide cash or food in exchange for work on local projects that are identified by communities and will help them improve their self-resilience in bad times.  These types of projects may focus on irrigation, wells, water harvesting, schools, latrines and the like. 

This approach shouldn’t seem radical.  Everyone agrees it is better to help people before they get hungry than after they have already lost everything.  But this recognition needs to be matched by changes in the way that government donors like the US, UK and Canada deliver aid.  The traditional funding split between short and long term responses should be replaced by urgent responses that support long term resilience and development.  It’s just common sense.

    * Nicolas Moyer is Coordinator for the Humanitarian Coalition

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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Class is held in the morning in Shinile [photo credit: Nicolas Moyer]

In a little village in Shinile Woreda, in the Somali region of Eastern Ethiopia, the children attend school from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., five days a week. Generally, they choose to set up under a tree. About 1,000 people live in the surrounding area; most within a 30 minute walk to the hand-dug well.

There are very few trees here, but the few they have are well appreciated. It’s the coolest place around when there’s a breeze and I admit that it makes for a beautiful classroom. But class doesn’t last long: the heat gets hard to bear and by mid-afternoon it’s too hard to expect any work to be done – including studying.

But when we came across Mohammed, he was working hard, slinging a shovel in the hot sun as he made improvements to his ragged little health clinic.

On the walls, Mohammed had tacked up some charts and graphs plotting out the region’s statistics. He’d plotted out the region’s demographics and catalogued his work, marking down births and deaths and the illnesses he routinely saw. He was desperate to build a latrine to help reduce the instances of water-borne disease and was counting on help from Oxfam to make it happen.

Mohammed grew up in Shinile and is now a health extension worker there. He had to go to nearby Dire Dawa to get the training he needed and was away for almost two years. But now that he is back in his village, he provides essential health services to people there. He has helped with everything from births to small cuts to nutrition education. Going to school made all the difference to him, and to the village he came back to.

School is one of thing that has really changed for people in Shinile. Having even a few hours of class a day is a great change on what was available 10 years ago. As for the rest of Ethiopia, even the Somali region has teachers and regular primary education for all children. In this way, children are connected to the rest of the country and can hope to pursue careers that were not possible for their parents.

Part of making that link to other careers is finding out about how to change local living conditions for the better.

    * Nicolas Moyer is Coordinator for the Humanitarian Coalition

 

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Monday, December 21, 2009

“I’m not going anywhere.  I prefer to die in my house”

Abdillahi Ahmed Ali, a drought-affected pastoralist in Somaliland

The town of Balli Hiile lies about an hours drive south east of Burcao in eastern Somaliland.  A carpet of monotonous semi-desert landscape surrounds the village; nothing but acacia trees, termite mounds and small prickly shrubs scatter the land.  The shrubs are deceptively green. When we asked our driver for the name of the only thing that looked edible, he answered with a shrug. 

“My animals can’t eat it, so I don’t know its name.” 

For 10 years, the inhabitants of Balli Hiile have been noticing a change in the weather. 

“Eighty per cent of the village has left because the rains haven’t come,” our guide, Fardus who works with Oxfam in Somaliland, tells us.  Many of them will have walked 100 km with their animals to the Ethiopian hinterlands in search of rain and something for their livestock to eat. “Those who have left will pass information down the roads from village to village, sending news if they’ve found rain and pasture” she said.

Somaliland forms the north western part of Somalia. Declaring its independence from the south in 1991, the region has been striving for international recognition of its independence ever since. Despite a fledgling democracy, its own currency and remaining relatively stable, its claim has never been recognized.

Like the rest of Somalia, Somaliland’s people are in the midst of the worst drought they have seen in a decade.  Water points are drying up, animals are dying and with them, the way of life for thousands of people is dying too.   

Only those not able to move and help are left behind.  One of those is Abdilahi Ahmed Ali. 

Abdilahi is 80 years old and has lived in Balli Hiile since 1958.  “When I look at the landscape now, I think of hungriness,” he said, looking out at the parched land surrounding him.  “When I was a boy, the village was full of green, we had the best quality fodder.”

The community told us that of the previous 10 years, the last four have been the worst.  This year, the rains have failed completely, allowing nothing to grow and decimating the livelihoods of a village that relies solely on its livestock for survival. 

“Each family will lose livestock” said Abdilahi.  “Last year we lost about 40 per cent of our animals, this year we’re hoping it will be no more than 20 per cent.”

Oxfam’s partner HAVOYOCO has been working with the community in Balli Hiile to conserve soil and water by rehabilitating water points and rebuilding crumbling berkads, large holes dug into the ground in which water can be stored. 

“We nearly died a while ago,” says one local stallholder in the village.  “We had food, but no water to cook it with.”

When the community was at crisis point earlier this year, HAVOYOCO trucked in water to keep people alive.         

Despite the devastation of his village and its way of life over the past 10 years, Abdullahi still has hope.  “We are expecting rain, all we need is rain and health,” he said.

If the rains continue to fail and more animals die, many of Balli Hiile’s inhabitants will be forced to give up their way of life and flee to the towns to beg for money and food. But Abdulahi was adamant that he will not leave his home and the place he loves.

“The only thing I can do is lie down here, I’m not going anywhere.  I prefer to die in my house.”

    * Louis Belanger is a press officer with Oxfam International

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A trading truck stops in a small desert town in Shinile [photo credit: Nicolas Moyer]

Shinile’s villages often have the feel of a ghost town. Round huts layered with mud and patched with discarded grain bags feel dusty and empty. There are few animals and even fewer young men. Most have disappeared in search of water, leaving their towns to the old men and women and the young mothers and their children.

On the second day of a two-day trip into the northeastern corner of Ethiopia we crossed into a mountainous region, the landscape turning rocky where it had once been bleak and flat. Children played on soccer pitches outlined with rocks. The dirt track carved into the hills wound its way to Djibouti, so the villages en route were better off than their neighbours. Catering to the truck drivers and other travels can bring a much needed income.

Most families here survive thanks to their livestock. The animals provide much needed milk and meat, which can be consumed by the family or sold to raise funds for life’s few extras. The more arid regions of East Africa have never been easy places to live. Plants and water are scarce, but a quick snapshot does not provide an accurate picture of life for people here. 

It wasn’t always so dry, people tell us. The rains normally come and go in fairly predictable patterns. In some places, the rains have always come so reliably that people can plant their crops confident that the rains will come, even when there isn’t a cloud in the sky. 

The last five years have been different. Rains across the region have come late, ended early, come at the wrong time or not come at all. It has played havoc with planting seasons and ruined countless essential crops. This is what climate change looks like in East Africa.

It’s having a direct and often deadly impact. This year’s drought is not a one-off event, but the accumulation of many years of poor rains. With year after year of poor rains, the devastation builds, leaving people here more vulnerable than ever. These villages feel empty because they are: men have taken their animals in search of water, leaving the women to fend for themselves, feed their children and protect their homes and whatever water remains.

In the most desperate of times, men watch their animals die as they search for water. Selling their livestock doesn’t solve their problems. Money disappears quickly and families are left with no animals for meat or milk. There’s nothing to help them start over. In a bad year, families can find themselves selling off everything they have.  Recurring droughts, even if they are not severe, can systematically push a family from a surplus farm production to the brink of despair. 

In Shinile, in the hottest part of the day, the men who remain sit under the shade of a desert tree with their cheeks puffed out as they crunch on wads khat. Khat comes from the leaves of a flowering shrub found throughout East Africa and is classified as a narcotic in the U.S., but here it is seen as a stimulant no stronger than caffeine.

The juicy leaves animate the chewer, prompting energetic conversation. Khat also fights the feeling of hunger – an important element in a place suffering from five years without rain.

    * Nicolas Moyer is Coordinator for the Humanitarian Coalition

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Monday, December 14, 2009

Mother of eight Momina Hashu surveyed her field of maize with despair. ”We hardly have anything to eat – just leftovers”, she said, pointing to a couple of stunted cobs of maize that she’s managed to salvage from the wilting, yellowed plants on her land.

“We’ve sold all our cattle. This is the worst year we’ve faced in recent years. As long as my children aren’t eating properly, I’m very worried for them.”

It’s the third year of failed rains in this dry region of Ethiopia and people are suffering. Many have already sold off livestock and other assets to get by. Thousands are receiving support under a government food safety net program, but many more don’t receive any help and are now struggling to feed their families.

I met Momina in her field of withered maize on the way to visit an Oxfam project in Arsi Negelle district, Oromia region, about 250 kilometres south of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. It is one of the most fertile parts of the country. But most farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture and Ethiopia, like much of East Africa, is currently facing drought and serious food shortages. The government says inadequate rains mean 6.2 million people need aid this year and has appealed to the international community to help.

Oxfam is working in several villages in Arsi Negelle district with a local partner, the Rift Valley Women’s Development Association (RCWDA). Projects target smallholder farmers, providing them with skills and training, helping them access fertilisers and seeds so they can diversify their crops and earn higher prices for their produce.

Villagers have been paid for their labour in cash-for-work programs to rehabilitate and clean old irrigation channels that had fallen into disrepair and disuse and building  access roads so that goods can get to the markets more quickly.Farmers have been organised into local co-operatives, allowing them to pool resources and have a stronger bargaining power for their goods; and women’s self-help groups have been set up, giving members access to small loans and training.

In Keraru village, Hussein Mohammed, a farmer and 45-year-old father of 12, says that his life has dramatically changed since the project began two years ago.

He’s harvesting a healthy crop of tomatoes from plot of land less than a hectare in size, which is well-irrigated from a nearby river. “I now have 14,000 birr [about $2,000] in the bank and I’ve bought four oxen”, he said proudly.  “Also, I’m sending all my children to school now.

“We’re surviving the drought because of this production”, he said, explaining that another plot of non-irrigated land, where he’d planted maize, had failed completely.

Encouraging farmers like Hussein to grow alternative high-value crops like tomatoes, onions and potatoes, which can be harvested several times a year, rather than the traditional staples of wheat, maize and teff [an Ethiopian cereal], which can only be harvested once a year, has meant a big increase in their income.

Life has also improved for many women, such as 30-year-old mother of seven, Arabe Geleto, who has joined a women’s self-help group. The women in the group are not only earning more money now, their self-confidence has grown. Arabe has opened a small shop with a loan, she grows vegetables on a small plot of irrigated land and regularly travels to Arsi Negelle town, where she processes grain grown in the village to be sold in a shop set up by co-operative members. “Before, I sat at home and took what we harvested to the local market. Now I’m travelling around, taking food from the village to town and back. Things have improved four-fold, I’d say. My confidence has grown, we’ve gained better information and education because now I’m involved in many things,” she said.

Oxfam-funded projects are clearly making a difference. They’re giving communities greater resilienceand a sense of pride. But millions need help. Emergency food aid may be an immediate solution to tide people over in the short term. But with climate scientists predicting that drought will soon become the norm in Ethiopia, much more needs to be done to help communities better protect themselves so that future shocks, like drought, don’t develop into disasters.

    ** Caroline Gluck is a communications specialist with Oxfam Great Britain.

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Wednesday, Decembre 9, 2009

Cows in the desert of Shinile, Somali Region of Ethiopia

Cows in Shinile [photo credit: Nicolas Moyer]

The women, wrapped head to toe and seated far behind the men, listened quietly as their husbands, brothers and fathers spoke with visitors from Oxfam. We were in Ethiopia, but the men were ethnically Somali, living in the northeastern corner of country.

They are mostly herders, otherwise known as pastoralists, who constantly move their goats, cattle or camels. The land they live off is hostile and it seemed the landscape had woven its way into their way of life: their welcome was genuine, but the complaints were numerous and the demands aggressive.

Their sisters, wives and mothers, however, had genuine worries. They were spending 12 hours walking in search of water.

That morning I’d boarded a flight from Addis, the capital, and flown northeast for an hour. At Dire Dawa we’d driven into the shimmering horizon, the heat waves making the sandy soil dance and shake. It was dusty, but there were flashes of green – a false sense of fertility since the foliage belongs to desert trees that produce no fruit and offer no nutrition. Their thorns, as long as fingers, can puncture tires.

We crossed dried riverbeds gouged into the landscape by the strength of flash floods. Rain, when it comes, falls suddenly, dramatically and violently, no match for land made weak by the lack of moisture. In a matter of minutes, churning mud turns to dangerous waterways, pulling in people, cars and trees. Once the clouds clear – as quickly as they came – the relentless sun bakes the mud rock hard.

It had been too long since the rains had fallen.

In Shinile it is so dry that even in good years there are no more than 15 days of rain. People here have learned to adapt, with little to eat or drink, to the very hard work it takes to survive here. But hardship doesn’t faze the people who live here. They are a proud people, and this is their home.   
 
That afternoon we visited seven villages, each a collection of globe-like huts fashioned from mud, cardboard and flattened bits of tin. As our vehicle pulled into the village, women, men and children would materialize, surrounding Philippa, the Oxfam Project Manager for the area, who was stopping in to monitor water projects.

Tea was poured and we were invited to sit with the men before venturing back into the sun to see what had happened since Philippa’s last visit. There are dozens of villages like this to visit; money is limited, time is tight and sometimes more than a month passes before Philippa can come to check on the progress of the building of latrines, the construction of water storage tanks, water points and troughs.

While the men might have their litany of demands, what they don’t want is to leave their lands. They’ll almost always say they would rather stay right where they are.  This is home, and has been for generations immemorial.  If their ancestors could live here so can they, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Most years, the people of Shinile can get by alright, with enough food for everyone and water enough to keep people and livestock healthy.  It’s a matter of degrees.  The Ethiopian government has helped train some health extension workers in Shinile and with some basic hygiene and sanitation efforts, the rates of disease have decreased.  It is a step in the right direction.

But some years are worse than others.  When the rains are too far between, it rocks the delicate balance that allows families here to survive.  It is a fine line between a reliable livelihood and vulnerability to poverty and hunger.  Recent changes in the local climate have only made this balance more fragile. 

In the last five years, rains have been fewer and farther between.  They are less predictable too.  When I lived in Ethiopia from 2005-2007, locals were able to predict, virtually to the week, when the rains would fall. That isn’t true anymore.  Not being able to plan only makes the people of Shinile even more vulnerable.

Especially the women, walking 12 hours in search of water. 

    * Nicolas Moyer is Coordinator for the Humanitarian Coalition

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Monday, December 7, 2009

Muhammed interrupted me by pounding the ground, laughing out loud and exchanging a few words with Seleban Yussuf , the village’s elder sitting next to him.

“Unbelievable. Can you believe this guy came all the way from America to see Somaliland?,” he said in Somali. “All the way just to talk to us. Sorry Mr. Louis, carry on.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seleban Yussuf

Indeed, Muhammed Yassin Abdel Llahi was right. There aren’t too many people that make the journey to Somaliland these days. The place is sort of the forgotten corner of what used to be a united Somalia. It has a President, a lower house, an upper house, its own money, and more importantly has been relatively stable for over 15 years. If you imagine Somalia as the number seven, Somaliland is at the top left corner, bordering tiny Djibouti and Ethiopia. It’s one of the most underdeveloped regions I have ever seen.

Father of seven, Muhammed is the head of over 450 households, based in Ununley, in the heart of Somaliland. He tells me of “changing weather”, of his seven children being away and of the drought that has hit the region and its people. All of the households are pastoralists, caring for animals and living a nomadic life.

The communities we met in Ununley told us that they’ve seen the climate changing in the last decade but “more drastically in the last four years”. In Eastern Africa this means a lack of rain which affects every aspect of life for pastoralist communities. Little rain means no green pastures from which animals can feed themselves. The lack of water and irregular rains have become a critical problem for tens of thousands of herdsmen in the region

As a result, many animals become weak, sick and simply start dying one by one. The Ununley community lost 40% of its livestock last year as animals in search of green areas crumbled under the heat, including the stronger ones like camels and cows.

“This is new for us. We have never seen so many animals dying so quickly. There is even a new phenomenon when a cow or even a camel just collapses and dies right there. They would usually fight for a day or two. I think it’s an illness they have,” Muhammed tells me.

Faced with recurring poor rainy seasons, loss of livestock, loss of lives even, community leaders are wondering what to do next. They are even considering leaving the arid rural areas for the towns in search of a different life. But they are not there yet.

“The thought of splitting our community to go to cities is hard to imagine. What will we do? Beg? For now, we can only pray for rain. With a few days of rain, everything can be good again,” the 45 year old leader told me, nervously biting his nails.

Oxfam’s partner in the region, Candlelight, recently responded to community requests to coordinate water projects. With the communities, it builds water dams, truck water into villages and improve water basins, called Burkads. In some instances, this has literally saved lives.


“Without water, people and livestock will die, but Oxfam has saved this from happening,” explained Safia Hussein Ibrahim, a local villager. “Now we have cash, we can buy food for the children and fodder for the animals. We only ask those who have something to train those who are strong, educate people, give them healthcare. We are expecting God to change our situation in a good way.”

With a few weeks left of what should be the rainy season, the people of Ununley are still hopeful. Despite having lost so much and seen their way of life threatened in the last decade, one thing that has not gone away is their resilience. A few rain showers before the end of the year.

That’s all they pray for. Inshallah.

    * Louis Belanger works in communications with Oxfam International

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Monday, November 23, 2009

Rain fell in Ethiopia – a hopeful sign in a time of terrible need.  Though no one is sure how long these rains will last, everyone is hoping and praying that it will rain just enough to soak the soil and not so much that it overwhelms the parched land. If the rains continue to be sparse – as they have for the past five years – it will be disastrous. 

Deke Abdi Ahmed, a village elder in Harshin, Ethiopia, is anxious to explain why he doesn’t expect the rains to make a big difference anyway.

“This is our third year of drought and the sheep and goats have rooted out all the grass… there is no seed,” he said. “So even if the rain comes we don’t expect a lot of grass. Any seed there is has been buried deep because of all the dust but mainly the animals have pulled out most of the roots. Before when it’s been bad we’ve relied on floods bringing seeds down from more fertile areas, but this year the drought has prevailed everywhere.”

This lack of pasture is Deke’s fear now. He adds that the goats have had such a struggle they’re also losing their teeth.

This makes Oxfam’s work with groups training Community Animal Health Workers, (pronounced, conveniently, as COWS) all the more important.

Abdi Awoinar, for example, is a very busy man. He’s handling a herd of sheep and goats. During a drought, diseases and other problems can cause a lot of problems and confusion. He takes his time to diagnose animal illnesses – though internal and external parasites seem to be the major problems as well as treating animal STDs, which are apparently very common. 

I feel a degree of sympathy for a goat as he squeals during some sensitive treatment before being sprayed with something blue and then freed. A sheep is treated to a quick pedicure before the herd is released. Weakened by lack of pasture and drought, it is particularly important that the general health of the livestock is maintained as much as possible.

But it’s not all bad news. I meet a group of very positive and strong women… all talking at once, so it’s pretty tricky trying to keep track of who’s saying what. They’re members of livestock marketing cooperatives and they’re quick to highlight they’re in a much better position than their sisters in other areas that Oxfam is not working in.

All have other businesses that are benefiting from this program and speak with a lot of pride when they talk about contributing to the building of a secondary school, which also means increased educational opportunities for their daughters.

    *Jane Beesley is a communications specialist for Oxfam

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Monday, November 9, 2009

The light is eerie. Dust hangs in the atmosphere hiding the sun, leaving a strange orange glow. This is one of the driest areas in the Somali region of Ethiopia. It’s also one of the main routes to Djibouti. We’re following endless trucks that throw up clouds of dust making it virtually impossible to pass. What can it be like living next to this road?

There’s a women standing at the top of a hole in the ground; bright yellow jerry cans and donkeys surround her. There are nine other women down the hole, she tells us, forming a human chain to bring water up from the bottom of a cave. They don’t need ropes because “God has provided a ladder” – a series of “ steps” in the rocky walls. It can take nearly all day, every day, to collect water and they’ve been relying on this water source for eight months this year.

Our driver goes down the hole. Back on terra firma he tells us it was like being in a grave. They don’t tell him until he’s up that there’s a snake down there with them. When they’ve finished another team of 10 women take their place.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to do this. I wonder if they can imagine that back home I can easily get plenty of clean water, any time, any day… always just a few steps away. Is it unimaginable? Like going to the doctors, going to school and all those other things we take for granted.
Behind them is a concrete wall. Oxfam and its partners have recently constructed a rock dam. If the rainy season is good then the dam should fill, making life a little easier for some of the year for these women.

The day is spent visiting various sites where Oxfam is working, or planning to work. The difference in people’s lives is obvious. At some places there is lack of water and pasture. Others have water but it’s open to the elements and often rubbish and animal droppings fall in, or, like the cave, it’s difficult to reach.

Where there is a borehole, and protected water points, life is comparatively healthier and easier. Sometimes, in this work, it’s easy to get a little cynical and disheartened. Are we really making a difference? But today it’s been pretty obvious that constructing boreholes, protecting wells, working with communities on water management (and the many other activities) definitely makes a difference.

Leaving a village where Oxfam has installed, amongst other things, a solar energy unit to pump water, I suddenly see a cheetah running alongside my side of the vehicle. He runs for a short while before turning in front of our vehicle and bounding off into the bush. He’s in peak condition - a rare, chance sighting of a thing of beauty. Everyone in the car is excited and somehow uplifted.

In the far distance we can see a black rain cloud… hopefully not another rare, chance sighting… and hopefully coming this way.

    *Jane Beesley is a communications specialist for Oxfam

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Monday, November 2, 2009

As we drove through eastern Ethiopia, my eyes were drawn to the dramatic valleys and stony mountains. One of my colleagues had just arrived and her camera was snapping away happily from the backseat.

But in the foreground of her photos, right alongside the road, there was an image that would worry any farmer. The crops are tall, but many of the plants are drying up before they have produced the maize that is the staple food here.

This is the sign of very difficult months ahead for millions of Ethiopians.

We were travelling between the towns of Jijiga and Dire Dawa, but similar scenes are to be seen all over the country at the moment. For many Ethiopian farmers and herders, this is far from the first time they have faced drought.

I remember a woman I met when visiting an Oxfam project way up in the north, in Tigray. Heymanot is a farmer who has had to look after her family and fields on her own since her husband died.

“The past three years the rain has come late and stopped early.  People’s problems accumulate, they pile up year after year,” she said.

When this happens, the stock response of the international community is to ship in emergency food aid. This saves the lives of people facing hunger now, but it does almost nothing to reduce the need for food aid next year.

It smacks of being taken by surprise, but there is nothing surprising about drought in Ethiopia. It happens regularly, and with the climate changing, it is likely to happen even more in future. Abnormal events such as droughts are gradually becoming the norm here.

That is why we need a new approach to disasters, an approach laid out in Oxfam’s new report - “Band Aids and Beyond.”.  Ethiopians do not want to have to wait for food after a drought hits; they want help preparing for it in advance, to make sure that a dry season does not mean a disaster.

Take Heymanot’s village, Adiha. A few years ago, her community only had enough food to last for nine months a year. Oxfam intervened with our partner, a local organization called REST. In exchange for food, the community worked to build a dam that now provides irrigation to the whole village.

Before, they did not have enough to feed themselves. Now, the villagers have enough - and enough extra to sell and pay for their children’s education and health care.

The farmers who work hard to grow crops, only to see them wilt under the scorching sun, do not want handouts. They want a hand up.

Let us make their vision our own and put an end to the cycle of disastrous droughts.

    * Nick Martlew is an Oxfam policy expert based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

 

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Monday, October 26, 2009

This is an excerpt from “Band Aids & Beyond,” an Oxfam report looking at breaking the cycle of hunger in Ethiopia. The report’s author, Nicholas Martlew, argues that while a lot has been improved since the devastating 1984-1985 Ethiopian famine, well-meaning donors entrench dependence on food aid by putting money into emergency—rather than development—responses and by sourcing food aid in their own countries, rather than supporting local markets and economies. The report begins with a message from Birhan Woldu, a survivor of the 1984–1985 famine and Director of Ethiopian Youth Educational Support (EYES), implementing partner of African Children’s Educational Trust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birhan Woldu

In 2005 I came to realize that I had become the face of the Ethiopian famine, although as a young child in 1984–1985 I knew or understood little about this disaster. I was featured in a Canadian TV documentary as the “face of hope for Africa,” someone who had survived the famine. TV interviewer Brian Stewart became a friend of my family. Twenty years later, in 2005, I was on stage with Madonna and Bob Geldof for the Live8 concert in London. I have now graduated with a diploma in agriculture and a degree in nursing.

All of this has been possible because, 25 years ago, my life was saved by Irish nursing sisters who gave me an injection, and food aid from organizations like Band Aid. So it may seem strange for me to say now that to get food aid from overseas is not the best way.
As well as being demeaning to our dignity, my education has taught me that constantly shipping food from places like the United States is costly, uneconomic and can encourage dependency.

We are a big country and often when there is famine in one part of the country there is plenty in another. We need better infrastructure and communications to move food around to where it is needed. Above all we need education. We Ethiopians are an intelligent, tough, and hard-working people with a culture going back thousands of years, and all of us want education. For example, my father is a farmer but he is not educated.  With my diploma I have been able to show him better ways to farm more efficiently and get better yields.

But until these longer-term programs take effect we cannot simply rely on imported food aid. We know our vulnerabilities.  We are a proud people. Let us grow our own food and help manage our own systems so we are not hit so hard when the next drought or flood comes. We need to approach disasters in a different way, that is more dignified and more sustainable than imported food aid. We can do this by building on communities’ own approaches.
I finish with a quote from Bob Geldof from when I was on his 2005 Live8 show in Hyde Park, London: “Band Aid was supposed to be just that – a ‘band-aid.’ And it is a disgrace 20 years later we should be here today, with half the youngsters in Africa still going to bed hungry.”

What happened in 1984–1985 was bad, and while we should not dwell on the past, we should learn from our mistakes to ensure a better future and a country free from famine, starvation and poverty.

To read the full report, please visit www.oxfam.ca/

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Monday, October 19, 2009

“At this time of year, all this land should be grazing fields and pasture, and full of thousands of animals,” says Dida Najelino as he waves his hand toward the carpet of rocky,barren desert, stretching as far as the horizon. “But now look at it. There hasn’t been a drop of rain here, and there’s nothing for livestock to eat.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drought-ravaged landscape [Photo credit: Alun McDonald]

The land is dry and hard, as we drive along a road lined by bare acacia trees, the leaves long fallen. Even camels - the hardiest of animals - are rarely seen. We drive past a water pan, a vast emergency reservoir for when times get desperate. It is completely dry.

I’m visiting Turkana with Dida and David Napereng, two local Oxfam staff, to see some of the areas affected by East Africa’s worst food crisis in a decade. Turkana, one of Kenya’s largest and driest districts, has suffered increasingly frequent droughts, and people here are feeling the impact of a third successive year of poor rains.

Turkana is a cruel place – brutally hot and dry, dotted in better times with plants that sprout razor-sharp petals. Lake Turkana the largest desert lake in the world at more than 50km wide, but David tells me that its water levels are receding.

“Ten years ago this was the edge of the lake,” he says, as we drive over dry sand a few hundred metres from the current shoreline. “Every year the lake gets a bit smaller.” Local communities say the droughts and changing climate mean tributary rivers are now bringing less water to the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishermen on the shore of Lake Turkana [Photo credit: Alun McDonald]

At the shore we find Paul Erot, a local fisherman unloading his morning’s catch. The lake’s tilapia and Nile perch are considered delicacies and exported across Kenya, bringing valuable income to Turkana’s lakeside villages. But Paul tells us the drought is having a devastating impact on small-scale fishermen like him:  “There are now much fewer fish than before. When it rains, freshwater streams enter the lake and you can catch lots of fish close to the shore. But when the rains fail, the streams dry up and the lake gets very salty, especially near the edges. The fish prefer the freshwater, so they all stay far away in the centre of the lake. To catch them requires big boats, but with no fish to sell these ones are all we can afford.”

He gestures towards some flimsy looking, small wooden boats. With the fierce winds at the lake’s centre, there is little chance these would survive further out in the lake’s choppy waters. “My family depends on me catching enough fish to eat and sell. If this drought continues I don’t know what we will do,” Paul said.

    * Alun McDonald is the head of communications in Oxfam’s Nairobi office

 

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Halima has seven children. She lives in Fincharo Village in northeast Kenya. Her three-year-old son Albashir was admitted to Save the Children’s Outpatient Therapeutic Programme for severely malnourished children.  When he was admitted, he was close to death.  Halima is a member of a pastoralist community, but the ongoing drought in this part of the country has killed several of her livestock and severely decreased the milk output of the rest – making it difficult for her to feed her children.

She shared her story with us.

 “My name is Halima and I have seven children. I live in Fincharo village in northeast Kenya. We’re facing many difficulties. There’s a lack of food in our family because the drought has lasted for so long it is affecting our livestock. Before, I had six cows and eight goats. But now there’s no more vegetation for them to graze on, and two cows and two goats died. Of the surviving four cows, only one is producing milk, and it’s very little. We used to depend on our cows and goats for milk and meat, but we can’t any longer.

“When we get water, we have to use half of it just to water our livestock to keep them alive, the rest is used for cooking and there’s a little left over for the children to drink. We have a lot of problems with water. There’s a borehole in our village, but it produces very little water. Every four days, we have to queue for water rations that only last us two days. So we end up going several days each week without any water.

“We also have very little food to eat. We have no food in the morning, and the rest of the day we eat grains that we get through relief. My son Albashir, who’s three, became very sick because he didn’t have enough food to eat. He became very skinny and nearly died.”

Halima was interviewed in the small Ministry of Health outpost where we run our weekly outpatient program. Her son Albashir, three, was eating a packet of special peanut paste as part of his treatment. He seemed healthy with a strong appetite. But we were told by Lois, the Save the Children nurse in charge of the program, that Albashir’s condition was extreme when she first saw him. “He was just skin and bones,” she says. “His condition was so bad that we even noticed him from afar the very first time we came to work in this village. He was severely malnourished.”


    * Elysia Nisan, Save the Children Canada

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Monday, October 12, 2009

For many women living in the drought-ravaged regions of the Horn & East Africa, the daily challenge is getting enough food for their children

The younger children go to school where they are given meals, the older children go to relatives, friends, neighbours and others to fetch water, find firewood or cook.  There is no payment for the work, there is no food to take home, but they can share the family meal. 

Kenyan woman

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agnes Nasur [Photo credit: Jane Beesley]

When there is little food at home, “I cope by reducing the size of meals, and skip some meals,” said Agnes Nasur. “I use little, little, so it might last until the time when there’s the next food distribution…but it compromises the children’s health.”

On this Canadian holiday, one so intricately linked with feasts to celebrate good fortune, many East African families have been forced to teach their children to cope with hunger.

In Milima Tatu, Apua Lokarulo says: “For those about five years old, who can understand, we just tell them, ‘There’s nothing today to eat.’ And they understand.” And the younger children? “The younger ones just cry” replies Ikimat Ekiru.

In the evening, I reflect on the day with my colleague, Gabriel Ekuwam. It’s his thoughts on people’s fear and loss of hope that brings it home.  As an outsider I can make many assumptions but Gabriel is a Turkanan from northern Kenya and it’s his insight that makes it clear what the difference is between this drought and the four that preceded it. People are really scared this time, scared of what dwindling donations will mean.

“I appreciate the food distribution but I’m now afraid. If the aid is cut…I’m afraid of what will happen to us. I fear for our lives. Even now the little I get I’m sharing with others…so the amount we are living on is very little…but now it is all we have.”  

    * Jane Beesley is a communications specialist for Oxfam

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The food crisis in Kenya is real, severe and deteriorating. Approximately 10 million people do not have enough to eat. In Mandera, where Save the Children operates a program for treating malnourished children, one in every three children is acutely malnourished.  This situation is only set to get worse.

And it’s happening already.  Water sources, especially pans, have completely dried up in all the five districts of Kenya.  The majority of livestock have migrated to Somalia and Ethiopia in search of water and pasture. Sheep and milking herds, which were left behind have succumbed to the drought and carcasses are strewn over most parts of Mandera, Wajir and Garissa.  Severe water scarcity has been reported in five districts and distances to water sources range from 30 to more than 100km.

Up to 30% of Kenyan children under the age of five are physically and mentally stunted and are unlikely to reach their full potential owing to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. These grim statistics are contained in new a report by Unicef, which places Kenya among countries experiencing high child mortality, with malnutrition contributing up to 50% of deaths of children under five.

With the situation worsening, our obligation to act continues to grow.  Work cannot slow down for the sake of those who live by nature’s course.

    *Elysia Nisan is Communications Coordinator at Save the Children Canada

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Monday, October 5, 2009

The old woman, her face collapsed with wrinkles, invited me into the courtyard of her family compound, where a white cow sat listless under a tree. We were outside Dadaab, a refugee camp in northeastern Kenya where more than 280,000 Somalis have sought refuge from their country’s violence.

The woman, a Kenyan living near the camp, was cooking over an open flame, a big metal pot that would feed her family of 10, plus some passing migrants moving in search of water, plus her collection of cattle.

She’d once had 70 cows, but was down to three skinny cows and five calves. She was feeding them from her family’s stores in an effort to keep them alive until the long rains came. That was in 2006. If the animals lived, they’d be used as breeding stock to rebuild the herd. Since then, Kenya’s long rains have refused to fall. For five long years, the rains have refused to come. Drought has destroyed the livelihoods of pastoralists like the old woman, who had virtually no reaction to her own photo, but was positively tickled by the image of her skinny cow.

I was being led around by a man named Mohammed, who worked with a CARE Canada project near Dadaab. Imagine, he said.  What will your people in the West think when they hear that Africans are sharing their pots with their animals.

I imagined they would begin to understand that, for many people, cattle are not merely a source of meat. For this woman, they were a source of milk, of money, of status and prestige. I imagined people in the West would see themselves in this woman’s actions. In times of hunger they too would share with a cherished pet or beloved animal.

I imagine that in times of hunger, they too would share with the hungry.

    * Karen Palmer is with Oxfam Canada

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

They pray for rain.  Looking at the dire situation people in the region are facing, it’s easy to understand why.  Of the 6.2 million people still in need of food aid, approximately 50% are children.  June to September has traditionally been known to bring Kirempt rains, representing the area’s wet season.  This year the rains have been late to come and harvest indicators paint a bleak picture of what this may mean to farmers and people who are already struggling to survive.

The late arrival of rain means that production prospects for the current meher harvest are seriously threatened.  The meher harvest takes place between April and September and represents 50% of crop production annually in Ethiopia.  A loss of crops during this cycle would mean a loss of income and food.  Not only will there be less food, but food prices will continue to rise making what is available unaffordable.  A lack of food production and fear of the ongoing drought has already caused cereal prices to rise since June of this year.  At the same time, livestock prices have declines because animals are in poor condition due to a lack of water.

Where things go from here remain as uncertain as ever, especially with the World Food Programme’s closure of 12 of its feeding centres in the region.  Efforts continue despite this, simply because they must.

    *David Morley, President and CEO of Save the Children Canada

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Gala came over the horizon like a vision in fushia.

She wore a startling pink dress and headscarf and was trailed by six camels, the lead one framed with a halo of yellow jerrycans tied around its middle. Gala had risen at 4 a.m. and set out in search of water. Nine hours later, as the mercury reached 40 C, she arrived at the watering station outside Dadaab, in the furthest northeastern reaches of Kenya.

At least a hundred groaning camels with their ribs and hip bones pressing against their skin were already waiting at the watering trough for a drink. Their “bells,” hollowed out seed pods with sticks as clangers, gave a wooden knocking sound as they dipped their long necks to drink. Normally they can take on 100 litres in one go, enough to last 30 days.  Weakened by the drought, however, they could only drink enough to last them five days.

Since her people don’t ride their camels, Gala had walked the 40 km alongside her animals. She intended to collect enough water for 80 people, then walk the 40 km back to her village. 

In seven days time, she would set out on the 80-km roundtrip journey again.

“Where is water? Where will we find it otherwise?” she asked as she struggled to control the lead camel.

Six countries in the Horn and East Africa are in crisis, facing severe food shortages and crippling drought. For five years, the rains have stubbornly refused to fall in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, leaving an estimated 20 million people in desperate need.

I met Gala while visiting that watering hole near Dadaab three years ago. Back then it was being called the worst drought since the 1970s. Since then, the walk to find water has grown even longer. Herds have been decimated and without a healthy rainy season, pastoralists like Gala have been unable to replenish their livestock. 

It’s a deepening downward spiral that must be stopped.

    * Karen Palmer, Oxfam Canada

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Drought/hunger in East Africa
In the past, there have been many large appeals to reach many hungry people. The focus of these appeals was always on the number of people in need rather than how many more people weren’t going hungry because traditional coping mechanisms were meeting their needs. The numbers of people going hungry during bad times was high, but these numbers could have been much worse.

Now, we seem to be seeing acceleration in the failure of traditional coping mechanisms. There are a number of factors contributing to this.However, climate change is often one of the most important. Due to climate change, the frequency and intensity of drought and other hazards in East Africa are much greater than in the past, and we seem to be seeing a dramatic increase in the failure of traditional coping mechanisms: they are simply coming under too much, sustained stress. As these mechanisms fail, we are likely to see an exponential rise in the number of people requiring external assistance.

People in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities are telling us that traditional self-help strategies are breaking down – people can’t help their neighbours anymore. From a human angle, this is says a lot. Many of these communities are very, very close, and neighbors rely on each other. As soon as you see neighbours unable to help each other, you start to feel the breadth of the hunger. The lack of resources to share is striking a lot of people right now.

You’re going to see this scenario playing itself out more and more frequently, over more and more territory. We used to have bad droughts every 15 years, but now we’re getting it every two-three years. In some areas, they have a drought every year. One official stated that now, in no year do we get a really good year. And people used to count on that really good year to build back their assets that they lost during the bad years. But now, every year is a bad year.

The consequences of climate change are unambiguous. In East Africa, we are seeing widespread reductions in food production by smallholder farmers and pastoralists. This has been predicted, and the predictions are for reductions to reach 50% below 1990 levels by 2020. We may reach this number before or after 2020, but the trajectory is clear.

It’s particularly disturbing that, 25 years after the Ethiopia famine of 1984, people are once again in need. We have to ask, “Why are we dealing with the same problem?” For years, CARE has been making the case that the international community has to invest more in disaster risk reduction. Instead, money is only provided when we encounter another crisis – and, even then, it often arrives only after local livelihoods have been destroyed.

This way of operating has always been wrong. We have never had enough money to responsibly meet emergency needs. However, the gap between what’s needed and what’s provided is getting wider and wider as climate change results in more frequent and intense crises (droughts, etc.). Climate change demands a change in the business as usual of emergency “response” rather than prevention. We have to use resources more wisely than this.

It’s like trying to fill a leaky bucket with water: in the past, there were just a few holes in the bucket, so we could add water and – at least in the short term – think we were making progress filling it. But with climate change, it’s as if there’s a proliferation of holes. It’s less and less possible to fill that bucket! Now, more than ever, we have to get serious about plugging the holes.

There’s a lot of talk about the coming El Niño, but you can’t generalize what impact it will have. El Niño could make things worse in some places, and better in others. It will be difficult to assess until after the fact.

    * Charles Ehrhart is Climate Change Coordinator for CARE

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Des enfants en péril au Kenya 
IRIN(Integrated Regional Information Networks) est un projet du bureau pour la coordination des Affaires humanitaires des Nations unies. Ils publient aujourd’hui un article sur la situation de sécheresse au Kenya.

M. Lemanyan, un éleveur, témoigne de la situation et raconte son quotidien depuis que l’eau manque. L’article met également en avant le travail fait sur le terrain par les équipes d’Aide à l’enfance et d’Oxfam, pour venir en aide aux enfants, procurer de la nourriture et sensibiliser la communauté internationale aux effets réels, concrets et déjà en cours des changements climatiques.

L’article est disponible au http://www.irinnews.org/fr/ReportFrench.aspx?ReportId=86276.

Une autre lecture intéressante ajoute une voix et un témoignage en direct et au cœur de la crise: Mark Bowdens, coordonateur humanitaire des Nations unies en Somalie,  donne une entrevue à Reuters Alertnet.

« Il faut se préparer à définir la situation comme étant une catastrophe naturelle d’envergure en Somalie, après une cinquième saison consécutive sans pluie, » déclare monsieur Bowdens. Ce coordonateur des Nations unies nous explique comment son travail, qui était basé sur l’assistance humanitaire face aux conséquences d’un conflit qui sévit dans la région, se redéfinit désormais pour prévoir l’impact d’une sécheresse sans précédant.

Monsieur Bowdens déclare que 3,6 millions de Somaliens – plus qu’un tiers de la population – dépendent déjà de l’aide alimentaire et que la sécheresse qui s’aggrave risque d’entraîner une forte augmentation de ce nombre. « Nous allons constater un impact majeur sur les moyens de subsistance des communautés pastorales en Somalie et le niveau de l’aide internationale pour y faire face nous inquiète, d’autant plus que les pays voisins sont dans une situation similaire. »

Dans son témoignage, il souligne aussi la vulnérabilité d’une population déjà très affaiblie par des déplacements forcés – conséquences des conflits – qui est frappée de plein fouet par les conséquences de la sécheresse.

Pour lire l’intégralité de l’entretien : http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/58388/2009/08/22-142104-1.htm (en anglais).

    * Contribution de Michel Verret, directeur développement et relations publiques, Oxfam-Québec

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Kenneth* was interviewed in a small village of dome-like structures (built of sticks, thatch, and scraps of cardboard) that people in this region traditionally build as homes. When Kenneth walked up to us he looked extremely tired. His eyes showed signs of anemia, his face was slack, and he had bags under his eyes. When we asked him why he wasn’t in school he explained to us that he had come down with malaria and was too sick to attend classes. He explained to us that he couldn’t go to the doctor to get medicine because his family had no money to pay for it.

Kenneth’s Story
My name is Kenneth and I’m 12 years old. I live in a small village outside El Wak, Kenya. The place we live has a scorching sun. We have some goats that were given to us by a relative, but here hasn’t been rain for a long time, so ther