Addis Ababa – The World Food Programme (WFP) has requested for 500 million dollars from donor agencies to fund 500 drought relief programmes in Ethiopia.
John Aylieff, the WFP Country Director, said on Friday in Addis Ababa that the fund had to be raised by the end of February to urgently buy resources to support 10.2 million people facing critical food shortages.
He added that “it is a really tall order for donors to suddenly mobilise the immense amount of resources needed for the Ethiopian crisis this year.
“I will also say it is a tall order for the mother in the highlands of Ethiopia to watch her children waste away.’’
Ethiopia is battling one of its worst droughts in decades that in parts of the country eclipse the 1984 crisis, when rain failures and conflict caused famine that killed an estimated 1 million people.
The director blamed the present scale of the drought, on the El Nino weather phenomenon.
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“We are really on the cliff’s edge, as we speak the 500 million dollars had to be raised by the end of February so resources could be in place by the end of April.’’
Aylieff said Ethopian government, WFP and a group of charities which include; Save the Children, are working on the relief effort.
He noted that government had already spent 300 million dollars, while other funds came from the U.S., Canada, European states and others.
He, however, said that even though more than 83 million dollars was committed this week, more was needed because the international aid budgets were overstretched by crises around the region. (Reuters/NAN)
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