Nation has been supporting people affected by El-Nino caused drought in the country using internal capacity with a budget of about 200 million USD, to provide food and non-food assistance. The government, in order to raise enough finance, has to even transfer fund from the budget initially proposed to development projects.
However, currently, it seems inevitable to look support from international allies as the number of drought victims has increased from six to eight million in April, due to flash flooding and worsening drought, National Disaster Risk Management Commission Commissioner Mitiku Kassa told The Ethiopian Herald.
Of which, the government would support about five million, while NGOs and World Food Program would assist one million and two million drought affected people respectively. Currently, Ethiopia needs some 1.13 billion USD to facilitate the food and non food assistance.
Only 262 million dollar was contributed by international organizations so far. EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) and UK government have spent six million euro and 30 million pound respectively. The government of USA has also pledged support.
Ethiopia's government has been working to strengthen its support while respective regional governments are also playing their utmost role in countering the effect.
According to Mitiku, the commission plans to make use of the Belg (autumn) season's production to be harvested in the next two months.
It is expected that the country would harvest about 345 million quintal agricultural products from over 13 million hectare of land in the belg season, said Bahiru Setegn Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resource Public Relation Expert.
Prior to the onset of the season, the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources has distributed about 13.8 and 1.4 Million quintals of fertilizer and selected seed of maize and wheat at reasonable price, he said.
As to Bahiru, the ministry has also distributed various machineries including combiners to farmers so as to carry out the harvesting process as fast as possible.
