From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed May 05 2010 - 11:01:31 EDT
DJIBOUTI: Half rural population need emergency food aid
Photo: Omar Hassan/IRIN <http://www.irinnews.org/>
<http://www.irinnews.org/PhotoDetail.aspx?ImageId=20062170> Collecting food
aid (file photo) NAIROBI, 5 May 2010 (IRIN) - About half of Djibouti’s rural
population will need emergency food assistance this year due to the combined
effects of drought, livestock losses, unfavourable livestock-to-cereal terms
of trade and high staple food prices, according to an assessment by the
government and UN agencies.
“Most pastoralists had lost a considerable proportion of their livestock
[70-80 percent] over the last five years and they suffered from diminished
sources of food and income and had exhausted their coping strategies,” Peter
Smerdon, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Nairobi,
said.
“The assessment estimated global acute malnutrition among children under
five [in rural areas] at 20 percent - above the emergency threshold of 15
percent.”
The assessment <http://www.fews.net/pages/country.aspx?gb=dj&l=en> followed
an alert issued in January by the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET). It
found that up to 120,000 people - half the rural population - would require
humanitarian assistance until December, including food aid and livelihood
support, nutrition interventions, water supply, and health assistance.
Restocking and asset building programmes are also needed in the medium term.
“The assessment recommended increasing the number of people receiving food
assistance,” Smerdon told IRIN on 5 May. “Therefore from April, WFP
increased the number of people receiving food through general food
distributions from 26,000 to 48,500. Nonetheless, this quick response is
neither sufficient nor sustainable and WFP faces a break in its food
supplies in August unless new contributions are urgently received.”
FEWS NET said most poor pastoral households were highly food insecure. The
food security situation was expected to worsen in the northwest and
southeast border pastoral livelihood zones due to insufficient natural
resources and inadequate food assistance, in the next six months.
“Poor urban households will likely face extreme food insecurity as the lean
period (June-August) approaches,” it noted in a 22 April brief. It
attributed the situation to high unemployment, a decline in petty trade
activities, above average staple food prices, increased rural-urban
migration, and closure of schools. Water shortages in Djibouti city would
also worsen in the coming months.
Separately, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the favourable
rains could mitigate the situation. In February, unseasonable rains together
with an early onset of the rainy season led to some recovery of pasture,
browse and water, especially in pastoral coastal areas, but this could not
guarantee the full recovery of the livestock sector, FAO said on 13 April.
Two-thirds of Djibouti's estimated 800,000 people live below the poverty
line - 10 percent in extreme poverty - according to Health Ministry
statistics. Most of the population lives in urban areas, but 60 percent are
unemployed.
The country also hosts 12,900 refugees, an increase of 1,902 on the 2009
numbers due to new arrivals from Eritrea and conflict-ridden south-central
Somalia, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
sub-regional office in Nairobi said on 30 April.
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