Germany is allocating 20 million euros to the FAO to help people in need in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia
NAIROBI (AXADLE) Germany is providing € 20 million in aid through the United Nations to alleviate the suffering of the ongoing severe drought in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
Following a historic drought, the UN estimates that around 13 million people are at risk of starvation.
In Somalia, 1.4 million people are estimated to be displaced due to the current drought, and 7.7 million, half of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance. There has been almost no rainfall in several regions of the Horn of Africa since the end of 2020.
Germany is giving the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 20 million euros to ensure that people in areas at particular risk of hunger can receive emergency assistance. Among other things, these funds will be used to feed more than 50,000 people in Somalia to their livestock.
In Ethiopia, 26 dried-up water holes need to be restored. In Kenya, 15,000 families must receive humanitarian remittances.
In parts of the three countries, rainfall has fallen by up to 70 percent. Some regions even have some of the lowest rainfall ever.
Nomadic shepherds and cattle breeders are facing increasing difficulties. Countless families have lost their only source of income.
As the lack of rain also causes grasslands to dry out, nomadic shepherds and their animals increasingly turn to arable land. Agriculturally viable areas are declining. Wells and irrigation systems are drying up. New conflicts arise as a result of competition for the shrinking number of fields, grazing
land and water holes.
The consequences of armed conflicts in Ethiopia and Somalia as well as a plague of locusts in 2020 have exacerbated the situation further. This funding demonstrates the German government’s basic approach to humanitarian aid. The purpose is to provide assistance as quickly and as proactively as possible to avoid or minimize injuries.
The German government has expanded its humanitarian aid in Africa in the last few years. In 2021, it made a total of 564 million euros available for assistance on the African continent.
