Addis Ababa — Government said on Tuesday that 6.4 million of the people currently need emergency food aid due to drought, and appealed for a further $265 million from donors.

State Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) Mitiku Kassa said Ethiopia needs US$225.9 million to buy food through December.

As global food and non-food resources get scarce, drought-affected areas in the country will continue facing the challenges, as observed during talks that the State Minister, along with representative colleagues from his ministry held with international humanitarian partners yesterday.

The minister, describing through the revised humanitarian research findings disbursed in the meeting, said that the revised document in June 2008 "based on the findings and recommendations of the joint multi-agency assessment themes [together with] a series of discussions with the concerned regional governments" has calculated the number of beneficiaries requiring relief food assistance to be 4.6 million (which previously was 2.2 million), the majority of whom being in Somali, Oromiya, and the SNNP regions together amounting to 76 percent.

The state minister attributed the escalating number of the needy to the failure of the Belg seasonal rains in many parts of these areas "compounded by the global increase in food items", adding that the global competition for aid resources are boosting while "resources are becoming more and more scarce" although humanitarian did not cease to be delivered.

Consequently, general food insecurity, prevalence of acute malnutrition, critical water shortages, and drought-induced diseases have exacerbated the emergency situation thereby leading to increased number of people needing emergency food and non-food assistance, according to the Minster.

As a result, the Ethiopian government has tried to address the "intrinsically affected areas by reducing the ration size by one-third", said Mitiku. "Parallel to providing assistance to the already identified needy population, close monitoring of the humanitarian and food security situation has been going on since the revision of the humanitarian requirement in June 2008," he said.

The Government-Partners' Joint Document as well numerically illustrates the total food and non-food requirement for the estimated beneficiaries has reached US$ 265,666,710, with the net food requirement being 270,245 metric tons.

The document also highlighted the imperatives of effective coordination among the Ethiopian government, UN agencies, NGOs, and donors in order to ensure proper implementation of the new approach and strategies introduced to address the humanitarian needs.

Speaking on behalf of the UN agencies, Fidelle Sarassaro, UN Humanitarian Coordinator, underscored the importance of the joint intervention being carried out by the Ethiopian government and the international donor community to combat challenges in food and non-food extension and relief distribution effectiveness problems in regions like that of Somali.

Both officials appreciated the continued attention given by the international humanitarian partners to the drought affected areas as well their consorted effort to eradicate food insecurity in the country.

About 80 percent of the people in the country rely on rain-fed farming even though the economy has experienced double-digit growth over the past four years.