Ethiopia food crisis
Our work fighting the food crisis
People in Ethiopia are facing acute food shortages. The escalating rise in global food prices, combined with prolonged drought, has left 4.6 million people in the poorest areas coping with malnutrition and all the health problems associated with it.
- Make an online donation to Save the Children's Ethiopia Food Crisis Appeal or call our emergency appeal line on 0800 8148 148.
Official statistics say 75,000 children are already severely malnourished and could die without immediate treatment. We estimate there are around 736,000 under-fives in the hardest-hit areas who are especially vulnerable to the affects of malnutrition and need our support before they get to this stage.
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Save the Children's response
Health and nutrition are critical at this stage. Our Country Director, David Throp, says "We urgently need more support to get the lifesaving healthcare and nutritional assistance to the people who need it most."
We're already delivering healthcare, food and farming supplies. We're also providing sources of clean water and helping keep children safe in suffering communities.
With over 800 staff on the ground, we've launched a major emergency response in six of the worst affected areas in Ethiopia. These are the eastern and arid southern parts of the country, including Oromiya, the Southern Nations Nationalities and People's Region (SNNPR), Somali and Afar Regions, and parts of Amhara and Tigray.
The work we're doing so far includes:
- community-based treatment for malnourished children, including high energy, nutrient-enriched foods and facilities for critically ill children who need medical help to stay alive. We expect to help up to 48,000 malnourished children this way, as well as other people vulnerable to malnutrition, like pregnant women and breast-feeding mothers.
- training community volunteers and health workers to spot symptoms of malnutrition, so they can refer at risk local children to us; supporting government health services to respond to epidemics and constructing water points, reaching more than 150,000 children.
- giving veterinary drugs and animal feed to families to help keep their animals alive. This will benefit around 250,000 children and their families. Across Oromiya and Somali we have already vaccinated 164,000 animals against disease.
- distributing food, including pulses, cereals and cooking oil, over the next five months, to around 500,000 people in Amhara, Somali and Afar regions.
- providing school materials like notebooks, pens and pencils to help children stay in school and setting up safe spaces for at least 25,000 children to come and play safely.
- livelihood support, like giving cash for work and seeds to grow crops. We expect this to help more than 100,000 children.
What you can do
We urgently need to find more resources so we can provide life-saving nutritional support for children. Poor households need our vital health services and support to protect their livelihoods, and they need it now.
Support our work by making a donation to Save the Children's Ethiopia Food Crisis Emergency Appeal online or by calling our emergency appeal line on 0800 8148 148.
Thomas, 1, has his arm circumference measured at Tulla Health Center in Southern Ethiopia. His mother has brought him to Save the Children's clinic to be tested for severe malnutrition. The screenings, which include tests for oedema and low weight to height percentages, are part of a response to the growing food crisis in Ethiopia.
Thomas also has a weight and height test as part of the screening at Tulla Health Centre. This involves establishing whether percentages fall at less than 70, in which case identifying severe acute malnutrition.
Mothers and children wait for screening at Tulla Health Center. Save the Children has been operating in this region since 2007. We're offering support to the government staff running the Outpatients Therapeutic Program at government health centre's where they can provide community based therapeutic care for malnourished children.
A combination of drought and escalating food prices has left people urgently in need of food in Ethiopia. Children under the age of five are particularly vulnerable to effects of malnutrition such as weight loss and disease.
Matheos and his wife Ayalech are parents of four young children. Like many other poor families they are suffering from a food crisis, triggered by a lack of rain from January to April which led to the failure of the sweet potato harvest. The food crisis has been compounded by the global rise in food prices-including a rise in their other staple, maize - and a shortage of food throughout the country.
Ayalech cooks chumele for her 4 children. Chumele is a salty wild cabbage that grows near their house and with no other food available the family now boil and eat this 3 times a day. This often gives the children diarrhoea.
Getnet Kebede, Health and Nutrition coordinator for Save the Children says, "If something goes wrong even for a month, it results in increased malnutrition rates for children in many households. While maize is one of the staple foods of the area, when it is scarce or too costly families turn to another staple: kocho. Made of the trunk of the enset/false banana tree and fermented underground for up to a year, enset carries most families through the hunger periods, but it lacks nutritional value."
Save the Children staff nurse Yenealem Alemu, 45, talks to a child outside the Stabilization Centre at Danama Health Centre, in West Badawacha woreda, Southern Ethiopia.
Matheos has brought Kibenesh, his 2 year old daughter, to this Save the Children Centre. Here he waits with other families for screenings outside the Danma Health Centre.
Save the Children staff nurse Hasan Ibrahim measures Maru, 3, who has been brought by her father Matheos to the Danama Health Centre clinic. After a series of screenings, children who are identified as suffering from severe acute malnutrition will be admitted to the clinic for treatment until they return to health.
"Young children are always the most vulnerable to severe malnutrition in situations of food shortages" said David Throp, Country Director in Ethiopia for Save the Children. "It is imperative that additional resources are found to ensure the rapid start up of nutrition interventions and the continuous availability of critically needed food, particularly for life saving nutritional support for children."
Thomas has his ankles inspected as part of a screening for symptoms of severe acute malnutrition. Oedema testing identifies if swelling due to fluid retention is as a result of malnutrition or hypoproteinemia - a lack of sufficient protein in the blood. Hypoproteinemia is the last and most severe form of malnutrition. A child with oedema is immediately admitted to the program.
Admitted children will go to see nurse (Sister Almaz) for an initial check up. Each child's temperature is taken and if there is a fever, they are given anti-malarial medication. Malnourished children are more susceptible to infection and so it is routine in cases of severe acute malnutrition to give a course of amoxicillin.
They will also be given a week's supply of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). RUTF's include Plumpy Nut for younger children (and those with oedema), and BP-100 biscuits for older children who can chew them. Recipients come back weekly for screening and to receive anti-parasite medication. The screening and supply of RUTF continues until the child ‘graduates' from the OTP. He or she will then be admitted to the government's supplemental feeding program.
Please help Save the Children provide life-saving assistance to hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian children
