Backgrounder - Canada's humanitarian response to drought in Ethiopia
Backgrounder
The support announced today by the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, totals $30 million in emergency humanitarian assistance funding, which will go to several partners in response to the food security crisis in Ethiopia.
The crisis, which is expected to affect up to 20 million people in Ethiopia, is the result of drought caused by a particularly strong El Niño event warming the Pacific Ocean and affecting global weather patterns. Although Ethiopia is one of the worst-hit countries, the effects of El Niño are being felt across southern and eastern Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and Central America.
Canada’s funding for Ethiopia will help meet critical food, health and nutrition, and water and sanitation needs in response to the deteriorating situation throughout the country. The Government of Canada’s contribution will be allocated as follows:
- United Nations World Food Programme (WFP): $21.5 million to help provide emergency food assistance to at least 6 million people in Ethiopia through food distribution, cash or vouchers, or food-for-work activities.
- United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF): $2.5 million to support national and international efforts combatting acute malnutrition through the management of a common pipeline for high-nutrient therapeutic food products and medicines, providing improved access to safe water and proper sanitation for drought-affected households and providing protection for children who face increased vulnerability due to the drought.
- CARE Canada: $1.9 million to help meet the humanitarian needs of drought-affected households in the West Hararghe zone of Oromiya state through improved access to treatment for acute malnutrition, provision of safe water and adequate sanitation facilities, and education on hygiene practices.
- Concern Worldwide: $1.6 million to help meet the humanitarian needs of more than 29,000 drought-affected people in the South Wollo zone of Amhara state through improved access to treatment for acute malnutrition.
- World Vision Canada: $1.25 million to help meet the humanitarian needs of drought-affected households in the state of Tigray’s Southern zone and in Oromiya’s Borena zone through improved access to treatment for acute malnutrition and the provision of safe water, adequate sanitation facilities, and education on hygiene practices.
- Doctors Without Borders Canada: $1.25 million to provide access to a wide range of primary and secondary health care services, including screening and treatment for acute malnutrition, for people living in the Jarar and Nogob zones of Ethiopia’s Somali regional state.
The above funding is in addition to two grants, totalling $5 million, to the WFP ($3.5 million) and UNICEF ($1.5 million) that Canada provided in October 2015 in response to the drought.
Earlier in 2015, Canada also provided a total of $15.5 million to support humanitarian operations in Ethiopia. This funding, channelled through UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, was used to support Eritrean, Somali, South Sudanese, and Sudanese refugees living in Ethiopia, as well as to address the humanitarian needs of Ethiopians.
Through its development program in Ethiopia, Canada also supports the Government of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Nets Program (PSNP), a large-scale cash- and food-for-work program for vulnerable households that builds resilience in the event of shocks and reduces the need for households to make distress asset sales, while also building climate-smart community infrastructure. Independent evaluations have shown that PSNP is reducing poverty on a large scale and that without it the number of people requiring humanitarian relief assistance in Ethiopia each year would be significantly greater.
In total, Canada has provided $50.5 million for humanitarian assistance in 2015 and will spend $73 million for development assistance in Ethiopia in fiscal year 2015-16.
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