President Obama makes his first presidential visit to African Union,in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 2015. Demoted/ Gazstegnaw Zega. All rights reserved.The first question a person asks you when in Addis Ababa these days is: do you have any information about the famine? Do you think the authorities are hiding the reality from us? Once more, millions of Ethiopians are facing an acute food shortage. Once more, foreign donors are called upon for a dramatic and urgent increase of relief aid. Does it mean that the same age old malediction is repeating itself, again and again, with the same deathly tribute?
According to the last Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD) for 2016, issued December 11 jointly by the government and the donors[1], 10.2 million people will be in need of food emergency assistance at the beginning of next year, and more than 2.1 million of special nutritional programmes, including 400,000 severely malnourished children. The requested budget amounts to 1.4 billion US dollars.
This statement puts an end to the divergences between the Ethiopian authorities and the donor community regarding the figures of people in need. Getachew Reda, the new government spokesman, contested the evaluations made by the former: “It is we who know the exact number of people on the ground who need emergency food aid. It is very unfortunate that we never agree with our partners on the figures. They believe they have to call a huge number to mobilize more aid” [2]. The statement also demonstrates the extreme seriousness of the food crisis and its swift escalation. The number of people in need climbed from 2.9 million (March 6) to 4.5 million (August 18) and suddenly to 8.2 million (September 21).
