The most extensive and persistent drought in decades hit the Horn of Africa in October 2020 due to poor rainfall and is continuing to ravage the region.

Farmers and their families have been living without sufficient food, water and crops for the last two and a half years and with forecasts of a sixth poor rainy season, the situation is expected to worsen well into mid-2023.

Both Ethiopia and Kenya are in the emergency Phase 4 as measured by the IPC Acute Food Insecurity Phases.
 
Phase 4 refers to situations where households either have large food consumption gaps, which are reflected in very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality, or are able to mitigate large food consumption gaps but only by employing emergency livelihood strategies and asset liquidation.

If rains continue to fail this year, Ethiopia and Kenya face the risk of moving into the fifth and final phase of food insecurity: famine.

This will be the sixth consecutive failed rainy season in the region, which is now on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.

The southern and eastern pastoral areas of Ethiopia, north and eastern parts of Kenya, northern Uganda and a large part of south-central Somalia are the worse affected areas, with over 30 million people needing urgent humanitarian food assistance.

The deterioration in condition and deaths of many livestock, water shortages and record-low vegetation conditions are just some of the results of this devastating drought, which is leading to mass hunger, disease outbreaks, acutely malnourished children, displacement and diverse economic shocks such as rising fuel and fertilizer prices, currency depreciation and inflation.

While help has arrived through humanitarian assistance to mitigate some food shortages, assistance is outpaced by the scale and severity of the situation. What's more, although certain regions were able to plant some crops between September 2022 and February 2023, it was a significantly below-average harvest. Farmers are likely to exhaust their food stocks atypically early and continue to face immense difficulty accessing food.

Compounding issues

In a region that has already endured flooding in early 2020, a desert locust invasion, the COVID-19 pandemic, protracted conflict in northern Ethiopia and now a rocketing inflation rate, the current drought poses severe threats to weakened farming communities who call this region home.

Staple food prices remain atypically high, driven by below-average production across the region and rising food and fuel prices on international markets. High food prices are reducing household purchasing power and limiting household food access.

Dr Diana Onyango, Head of Technical Team at Farm Africa, said: “The communities that are facing the worst of these climate extremes are still recovering from severe challenges such as conflict and the pandemic.”

“Once again, we see those who have made the smallest contribution to climate change bear the greatest burden.”

The region is also feeling the impact of the Russia Ukraine conflict through a spike in agricultural commodity prices.

Together, the Russian Federation and Ukraine produce 53 per cent of sunflower oil and seeds, and 27 per cent of wheat traded globally.[i] Countries in eastern Africa are particularly dependent on the import of food security foods: Kenya sources more than 40% of its wheat from the Russian Federation and Ukraine, while in Uganda the figure is more than 50% and in Tanzania it is over 60%.[ii]

Action is needed to avert threats to food security across eastern Africa.

How Farm Africa is helping

In the Borena zone in the Oromia National Regional State of Ethiopia, where the drought has dried up pasture and livestock are suffering from acute shortages of water and land, Farm Africa and SOS Sahel Ethiopia delivered emergency supplies of animal forage, thanks to funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia, in the hope to save livestock.

But we need your help to do more.