Ethiopia in dire straits

2003-06-17 22:02

Rome - A senior US official is criticising a United Nations agency for its response to the drought and food crisis in Ethiopia, saying it had underestimated the needs for some of the 12.6 million people requiring aid.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said it stood by its assessment, although it said there was room for improvement.

Tony Hall, the US ambassador to the Rome-based UN food agencies, sought to draw attention to the food crisis in Ethiopia and Eritrea in a news release, saying there was still a few weeks to act before the "hungry season" starts and residents "start dying in massive numbers."

F-word

"Nobody wants to use the f-word, but famine is threatening the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea again," Hall said in a statement. "Some people are saying famine is coming, and unless we do more, they will be right."

Hall called on the United Nations to urgently re-evaluate its appeal for Ethiopia in particular, "since needs have been understated."

He said the FAO hadn't adequately assessed the seed requirements for Ethiopia, such that the Ethiopian agriculture minister made an emergency appeal last week for an additional $10m in seed donations to fill a gap for the upcoming planting season.

"This request was not reflected in the (UN) appeal, and in fact, contradicted the position of the FAO," Hall's statement said. "They claimed that the seed requirements were satisfied, with some exceptions. Unfortunately, that was not true."

Scope for improvement

Richard China, FAO's co-ordinator of rehabilitation and humanitarian policies, said he didn't know how the Ethiopian government had arrived at the $10m figure, but noted that the FAO had originally appealed for $15m for seeds in December, and that the donor response had been minimal.

He said the FAO stood by its original assessment, although he added there was "scope for improving the assessment of availability and access to seed," since non-governmental aid groups are providing significant amounts of seeds that aren't being registered by the government.

Hall's spokesperson, Max Finberg, said the Ethiopian government itself had only realised the seed shortfall after a US disaster response team assessed the situation and told Ethiopian officials about it.

US money

Finberg acknowledged that the US had additional money it wanted to donate to Ethiopia and that the donation factored into the US push for Ethiopia to re-assess its seed requirements. But he stressed the needs were real.

"It wasn't that we had money lying around and we wanted to put it there even though they didn't want it there," he said. "We thought that there was a bigger need than people were talking about. We were able to meet that need," he said, adding that America contributed an extra $3.3m to the purchase of seeds last week.

Last month, the UN World Food Programme issued a $90m appeal for Ethiopia, saying exceptionally dry weather had pushed the country on the brink of a food crisis similar to the famine of 1984-85, when hundreds of thousands of people died.

The crisis has affected 12.6 million of Ethiopia's 65 million people, or one in five of the population. In Eritrea 70% of the 3.2 million people have been affected by a drought now entering its fourth year.

Madagascar

In another African country facing a food emergency, WFP said on Tuesday it was extending its appeal for food aid to Madagascar through the rest of the year because of drought and cyclones that heavily damaged crops.

In the south especially, the consequences of the worst drought in 10 years are continuing, and the number of severely malnourished children arriving at government-run nutrition centres has increased, the Rome-based agency said. - Sapa-AP

- SAPA