One year on: Building resilience in the Horn of Africa

Tierney Smith in Responding to Climate Change:  A year on from the Horn of Africa disaster and two good rainy seasons have helped to relieve the pressure and aid recovery in the region. But there is an underlying feeling of helplessness for communities in the region living at the mercy of possible future dry periods.

With the potential of another dry spell always just around the corner, the efforts of NGOs and Aid Agencies is moving away from emergency relief to building resilience in the region. They want to ensure a similar event will not have the dire consequences – an estimated 50,000 and 100,000 deaths – it had in Africa last year.

“Memories about the last drought are almost erased because we have received two very good seasons consecutively,” says Abdul Haro from Practical Action. “But the long rains in April to June were below optimal levels and should the short rains expected in October and November fail, then there will be trouble.

“Currently there is plenty of pasture and water pans have water, although recently a few areas have started reporting water stress for humans.”

Drought is a complex phenomenon, caused by multiple contributing factors. It is still impossible for scientists to fully associate one extreme event to climate change. But scientists agree that the chances of these events heighten with advancing climate instability....

P. Heinlein: Somali Refugees Face Harsh, Uncertain Fate in Ethiopian Camps. VOA News, photo gallery, public domain

West Africa to receive EUR20 million aid package for drought

Eurasia Review: The European Commission adopted Wednesday a € 20 million humanitarian financial package to support 12 million people affected by drought in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. This funding will help efforts to develop the populations' resilience to drought and adapt to climate change.

The Greater Horn of Africa has been severely affected by recurrent and persistent manmade and natural hazards, leaving populations highly vulnerable to drought, human and livestock disease outbreaks, and to a lesser extent floods. Accounting for 95% of the death toll caused by natural disasters in Africa, droughts pose a very serious threat to the people of this region.

Protracted conflicts, major structural problems and a lack of basic services mean that inhabitants are poorly equipped to cope with natural disasters. Malnutrition and child morbidity and mortality are among the greatest humanitarian concerns in this region. Since 2008, the Commission hassupported drought preparedness interventions in the region worth € 60 million.

....A large number of the pastoralist populations in the arid lands chronically rely on outside assistance, and lack access to basic services. This results in high rates of malnutrition, child morbidity and mortality, as well as increasing numbers of pastoralist drop-outs, and poses significant humanitarian risks during periods of reduced rainfall. It is estimated that over 12 million pastoralists and agro-pastoralists are affected by recurrent droughts…

An Awdalite at Gargara's well, shot by Aby saylici, Wikimedia Commons via World 66, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license