Drought-stricken herders in Ethiopia need urgent support

NaijaAgroNet:

Supporting herders to get back on their feet and preventing further livestock losses and suffering are crucial in drought-hit Ethiopia where hunger has been on the rise this year, warned today the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Drought has devastated herders’ livelihoods as it exhausted pastures and water sources, leading to a significant number of animals dying or falling ill, particularly in the southern and southeastern regions of the country as other areas recover from previous seasons’ El Niño-induced drought.

Drought-hit pastoralists face reduced milk production, rising malnutrition, and have limited income-earning capacity and severely constrained access to food.

Some 8.5 million people – one in 12 people – are now suffering from hunger; of these, 3.3 million people live in Somali Region.

The current food and nutrition crisis is significantly aggravated by the severe blow to pastoral livelihoods. For livestock-dependent families, the animals can literally mean the difference between life and death, especially for children, pregnant and nursing women for whom milk is a crucial source of nutrition.

With up to 2 million animals lost so far, FAO is focusing on providing emergency livestock support to the most vulnerable pastoralist communities through animal vaccination and treatment, supplementary feed and water, rehabilitating water points, and supporting fodder and feed production.

“It is crucial to provide this support between now and October – when rains are due – to begin the recovery process and prevent further losses of animals. If we don’t act now, hunger and malnutrition will only get worse among pastoral communities,” said Abdoul Karim Bah, FAO Deputy Representative in Ethiopia.

By providing supplementary feed and water for livestock, while at the  same time supporting fodder production, FAO seeks to protect core breeding animals and enable drought-hit families to rebuild their livelihoods. Animal health campaigns will be reinforced to protect animals, particularly before the rains set in, when they are at their weakest and more susceptible to parasites or infectious diseases. FAO-supported destocking and cash-for-work programmes will also provide a crucial source of cash for families.

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UN stresses need to eradicate poverty

NaijaAgroNet:

In marking the 24th anniversary of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP), the United Nations has underscored the need to recognize and address the humiliation and exclusion endured by many people living in poverty, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, noted that as the world work together to honour the pledge to build a life of peace, prosperity and dignity for all, the world must recognize that prejudice and discrimination seriously impede efforts.

“To end poverty, we must commit to respect and defend the human rights of all people and end the humiliation and social exclusion that the poor face every day,” he said.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that this year marks the first commemoration of IDEP since the launch of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals in January 2016. Recent estimates show that despite significant gains since 2002 – the number of people living below the poverty line dropped by half – 1 in 8 people still live in extreme poverty, including 800 million people who do not have enough to eat.

Equally, NaijaAgroNet gathered that an estimated 2.4 billion people have no access to improved sanitation, 1.1 billion people have no access to electricity and 880 million people live in urban slums. Opportunities continue to remain scarce for the world’s most vulnerable people – 59 million children of primary school age are out of school and the youth unemployment rate is 15 per cent, more than three times the rate of adults.

“With its central pledge to leave no one behind, the historic and ambitious new 2030 Agenda recognises that development will only be sustainable if it is inclusive,” said the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Wu Hongbo.

“We need to change the course of human development from one characterized by exclusion, inequalities, conflict, and unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, to one that is more inclusive, equitable and sustainable,” Hongbo said.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Exclusive: Nigeria, 36 other countries need external food assistance

NaijaAgroNet:

Some 37 countries globally including Nigeria are in need of external food assistance, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisaton (FAO), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Other countries comprised of Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq, and Kenya.

Equally affected based on FAO outline include Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Also, FAO raised its forecast for global cereal production in 2016 to 2,539 million tonnes, up 17.3 million tonnes from its previous May projection and up 0.6 percent from last year's harvest. 

Aggregate cereal production in Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) is also forecast to increase to 420 million tonnes in 2016, led by a recovery in rice and wheat production in India after last year reduction due to El Niño-related drought.  That would be a 2.5 percent increase from last year's "sharply reduced" level.

NaijaAgroNet, in spite of the improved world production prospects in 2016, output would still fall slightly short of the projected demand in 2016/17, meaning global stocks would need to be drawn down from their near-record level.

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