(Extract)
Ethiopia
The overall humanitarian situation remains challenging. The major concerns are still low food production due to consecutive rain failures, high food prices preventing the poorest households from having access to basic dietary requirements, and access limitations imposed by the Government, including lack of access to the Ogaden/Somali Regional State and restrictions on nutritional emergency response programmes. The Commission's humanitarian aid will continue to focus on food assistance, including food aid, nutrition and emergency food security interventions. Moreover, the efforts of the Government and development partners will be complemented by individual/local operations in the areas of health, including epidemics, and water and sanitation. Whenever feasible, opportunities for LRRD will continue to be explored and DRR will be mainstreamed in all operations, especially those implemented in arid and semi-arid lands.
Eritrea
Due to Government-imposed restrictions, resulting in a shrinking of the humanitarian space, a lack of reliable data and a reduction of the effective implementation capacity of partners, it has not been possible to commit the entirety of funds allocated in 2009 and it is no longer possible to address humanitarian needs in a professional manner. Therefore, at this stage, there are no plans for funding in 2010.
Kenya
Support for the thousands of Somali refugees will be continued. The population at Dadaab camp, where more than 320,000 people live in extremely precarious conditions, relies entirely on external assistance. Vital services are underfunded. DG ECHO will focus on providing safe water and sufficient sanitation facilities, helping to avoid interruptions in the food pipeline and improving the primary health services. In the arid parts of Kenya, where malnutrition rates are above WHO emergency standards, DG ECHO will support nutrition and livelihood activities, focusing on treatment and surveillance. Actions aimed at sustaining the early recovery from the severe drought in 2009 will also be funded in the sectors of food and food security, water and the health and management of livestock. Opportunities for LRRD, when possible, will continue to be pursued, especially in the sectors of food security and livelihood.
Somalia
Half of the population, that is an estimated 3.76 million people, are in need of humanitarian assistance, and these include more than 1.42 million IDPs. In addition, the overall situation in most parts of Somalia is deteriorating very rapidly as a result of undermined livelihoods, eroded coping strategies, high commodity prices, inflation, currency devaluation and persistent drought. Malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world. Humanitarian agencies, including DG ECHO's partners, continue to face challenges in providing relief to the population. Several aid agencies are prevented from undertaking accurate field assessments, ensuring proper monitoring and scaling up their activities to meet the growing needs. However, DG ECHO's partners have made considerable progress in increasing implementation capacity. As a rapid improvement in the situation is unlikely, DG ECHO will continue to focus on the core humanitarian needs of IDPs, host communities, extremely marginalized communities and the chronically vulnerable. These will be addressed through food assistance, non-food items, health, water and sanitation. Livelihood support and cash programmes to the most vulnerable households will also be considered, as well as activities aimed at reducing malnutrition and providing water. Food aid will be considered only as an option of last resort. DG ECHO will continue to ensure complementarities and LRRD. Whenever feasible, opportunities for DRR will be explored.
Uganda
The Commission is gradually reducing its humanitarian funding as the return process of the IDPs continues in the Acholi region. A substantial reduction in the quantity of food aid needed is likely as the self-sufficiency of the returning populations improves. In the Karamoja region, however, food security remains precarious. DG ECHO will continue to support nutrition actions, interventions related to insecurity and livelihood support.
Regional Drought
In order to address the issue of drought in the Horn of Africa, the Commission will continue to support pilot humanitarian interventions in pursuit of two objectives: to improve the quality of the emergency response to drought, and to enhance the adaptive and coping strategies of local communities facing increasingly recurrent drought cycles, by reducing their dependency on external support. This approach, which includes a number of cross-border interventions, addresses the protracted humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa via a disaster risk reduction approach, including responding to the challenges posed by climate change to the arid and semi-arid lands of the Horn of Africa region. The strategy will be a response to the severe drought of 2009. In addition, regional advocacy actions will use and disseminate the lessons learned, as well as the good practices identified, thereby intensifying LRRD efforts. This approach has already begun to yield positive results. The integration of regional drought risk reduction actions into the institutional framework of disaster preparedness will be pursued, with the prospect of exiting once the institutional and development actors have fully incorporated the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation approach into their support strategies targeting vulnerable populations.
See full document at: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/SODA-7XJMDK?OpenDocument
