EL-NINO Response

Addis Ababa - 23 March 2016

IOM joins humanitarian partners and the Government of Ethiopia on a 90-day campaign to raise awareness on the urgent need for additional funding for the drought crisis in Ethiopia to address the humanitarian resource gap.

“Ethiopia is currently contending with one of the most serious climatic shocks in recorded history with ten million people facing lost harvests and livestock as well as severe water shortages and health risks,”   said Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa-Onuchie, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ethiopia.  “We are launching this campaign to advocate for increased funding commensurate with the scale and severity of this crisis.’

Due to the ongoing and protracted El Nino phenomenon, IOM’s quarterly Internal Displacement Monitoring Report (IDMR) is ever more relevant and crucial to help partners in providing coordinated, efficient and timely response to displaced persons.

As part of an ongoing relief effort IOM Ethiopia is providing drought affected families with Emergency Shelter and Non-Food Item (ES/NFI) kits. IOM’s Displacement tracking and analysis is providing emergency actors with critical insight into the multi-sectoral humanitarian and protection needs of displaced persons and host communities. Continued strengthening of inter-cluster mechanisms for sharing of displacement information and subsequent incorporation into humanitarian response planning is essential, to ensure an accurate picture of the multi-sectoral needs of displaced persons and host communities is regularly available to emergency actors.

As part of an ongoing relief effort in support of drought-affected families, IOM recently distributed 442 Emergency Shelter and Non-Food Item (ES/NFI) kits to displaced families in Mile, Dubti, and Asiyta woredas of the Afar Regional State. Accordingly, 87 households were assisted in Mile, while 305 received assistance in Dubti and 50 households in Asiyta. The ES/NFI kits contained plastic sheeting for temporary shelters, mosquito nets, sleeping mats and blankets, kitchen sets, basic hygiene kits and other materials to meet essential household needs.