29 May 2008
Addis Ababa — The Humanitarian Response Fund (HRF) has allocated US$ 7.2 million for the procurement of CSB, ready to use therapeutic foods and drugs, in response to the present alarming levels of malnutrition, the UN said on Monday.
The fund has already provided US$ 5.5 million for water and livestock interventions in Borena and Guji zones of Oromiya and parts of Somali regions.
"The HRF is also reviewing additional project applications from NGOs responding to the nutrition and seed requirements in SNNP and Oromiya regions," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs-UNOCHA- said in its weekly humanitarian report.
It said the programme has received US$ 13 million from the Governments of Norway, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
UNOCHA said the food security situation in the drought affected areas of Oromiya, Somali and SNNPR was anticipated to further deteriorate as the hunger season sets in June combined with the alarming increase in prices of food commodities and market disruption adding that emergency resource shortages further exacerbate the situation.
It added that humanitarian aid agencies were pleading for more help, in the face of a rapidly developing food emergency in drought-stricken central Ethiopia.
In the past three weeks, scores of children have died of starvation and the United Nations said 126,000 others were in "immediate danger," The World Food Program (WFP) estimated that, to cover food shortages, Ethiopia will need $147 million more aid than what has been pledged.
WFP spokesperson Lisetta Trebbi recently told the press that the government's initial appeal for international assistance underestimated the need by more than one million people.
"The government is currently responding to 2.7 million people, and this is a higher number than the number they used for the 2008 appeal," media reports quoted her as saying.
"WFP thinks that beyond June we will look at least three-point-four million people, possibly more."
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