These women in the Oromiya region of Ethiopia used to walk 20 minutes to fetch water - now the nearest muddy pond is four hours away
(Photo: © Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN)
4.65 million people in Ethiopia alone are likely to need food aid before the year is out. CMS mission partner Rosemary Burke reports from her base in country.
Rosemary is seconded to work with Tearfund, using her business expertise to support a network of self-help groups and small businesses that will help communities thrive and survive.
Where are the most affected areas and what has the impact been?
The drought-stricken areas that have been recently publicised in the media are mainly in the Far South and East of the country (Afar, Ogaden and Borena). These are pastoral areas, where Tearfund Ethiopia Partners are not well represented.
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I spoke to one man who lost an entire herd of 400 cattle. He was walking around like a ghost."
We are in the famine: a Christian community response
The October-December rains failed there and there hasn't been any rain since. As a result the grass has died and the water holes and ponds have dried up. There is a Tearfund Partner working in the North of Kenya and one in Somalia. The number of people in Ethiopia that will require food aid between now and the end of the year is officially estimated to be 4.65 million.
But the problems extend beyond the range of media reports...
Yes, problems are not restricted to the areas receiving current media attention. Across Ethiopia Tearfund Partners are facing varying situations. In the South the 'small' rains (Feb-Apr) were six weeks late and poorly distributed so there is a food gap or green famine. The early sweet potato crop was lost and the haricot bean crop was much reduced. That is what people would have been eating now but there is little food currently.
What are you involved with?
We are working with the churches there to implement cash-for-work schemes in their communities to tide people over, and to assess whether supplementary feeding programmes for children may be necessary. In our project with the church in North Showa, there has been no rain at all and the ponds and streams have dried up so the women have to go further and further each day to find water. The return trip now takes six hours. There nothing has been planted and the sorghum season has been missed.
Is drought the only issue?
In the highland cereal growing areas they have a different problem. They have rain but the wheat harvest is being affected by a disease called rust. This is a general problem in the Horn of Africa and its effect is to keep wheat, and hence bread, prices high. This combined with poor harvests has forced food inflation in Ethiopia upwards: it is now officially 45 per cent. Some communities will be facing food shortages not because there is no food, but because it is too expensive to buy.
How has drought affected income from sale of livestock?
In seeming contradiction, livestock prices are falling. This is partly because the animals are getting skinnier and partly because the market is over-supplied – everyone is selling. So there is a vicious cycle as people try to sell livestock to get money to buy food.
What are you trying to achieve longer term?
Much of our long term day-to-day work in Ethiopia is aimed at helping rural communities to buffer themselves against dry years so that they don't have to sell their livestock or eat their seed to survive and can make the most use of whatever rain that there is. Savings, income-generation, seed banks, terracing, composting, growing drought-resistant fodder crops and water schemes are all part of our programme. We are planning a survey after this period of difficulty is over to see if 'our' communities have weathered the conditions differently to others surrounding them.