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Ethiopia - 44% of Ethiopians undernourished - FAO Report

35 million Ethiopians or about 44% of the total population are undernourished according to a report released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organaization (FAO). The report which refers the data from 2004 to 2006, shows a progress for Ethiopia in reducing the percentage of malnourished people from 71% in 1990-92 to 44% in 2004-06. The country still has one of the largest proportion of malnourished people in the world, but the report shows a marked decrease in the percentage of malnutrition prevalence. This compares to 30% malnutrition prevalence in Kenya and 66% in Eritrea, which has the second highest malnutrition percentage in the world after Congo (D.R). The DRC was the worst affected, followed by Burundi, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Chad and Ethiopia.

The sharp spike in hunger triggered by the global economic crisis has hit the poorest people in developing countries hardest, revealing a fragile world food system in urgent need of reform, according to a report released today by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The combination of food and economic crises has pushed the number of hungry people worldwide to historic levels — more than one billion people are undernourished, according to FAO estimates.

Nearly all the world's undernourished live in developing countries. In Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger; in Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; in the Near East and North Africa 42 million; and in developed countries 15 million, according FAO's annual hunger report, The State of Food Insecurity, produced this year in collaboration with WFP. The report was published before World Food Day, to be celebrated on 16 October 2009.

Safety Net in Ethiopia

For many years, Ethiopia has seemed to be in constant crisis. Each year, when harvests failed, the government would ask the international community for emergency assistance. Yet this approach failed to address the structural problems underlying Ethiopia’s food insecurity. The need for a strategy that left behind more than empty food sacks triggered the shift from annual relief to multiannual predictable support under the Productive Safety Net Programme. Predictable and counter-cyclical safety nets put in place before crises hit not only decrease the need for relief assistance, but are also vital for enhancing risk management.1 Under the Productive Safety Net Programme (the largest safety-net programme in Africa), cash or food goes to some 7 million Ethiopians for six months each year, either through public works such as construction of rural roads and bridges, or as direct payments. Families live off their own income for the rest of the year.

A survey of nearly 1 000 households participating in this programme found that almost all food transfers were consumed and most cash was used to purchase food. Participants were also less likely to sell assets (especially livestock) to buy food, leaving them less prone to destitution.

The programme includes other innovations. In 2006, for example, the World Food Programme (WFP) initiated, with AXA Re, the world’s first insurance contract for humanitarian relief. Under this arrangement, support to vulnerable people is triggered by adverse weather events such as drought.

In 2007–08, soaring food prices and a drop in foreign investment and remittances threatened to stall the national progress made through the programme. Problems such as the low value and erratic disbursement of cash and food must be addressed. Preliminary analysis suggests that when families do receive predictable disbursements of cash and food transfers at frequent intervals, as opposed to unpredictable disbursements at varying intervals, several benefits are realized. Households in distress are less likely to sell assets and more likely to adopt riskier but profitable technologies, and the private sector is more likely to extend credit, even for consumption needs, because the default risk is lower. Improved targeting of beneficiaries and their subsequent “graduation” from a safety-net programme should also be prioritized. Despite progress in expanding the number of eligible beneficiaries, the programme still targets only some of the country’s food-insecure households. This issue is particularly compelling for pastoralist areas (e.g. the Somali region in eastern Ethiopia) not yet covered by the programme. At the same time, improved linkages with emergency responses and other development packages need to be explored.