ETHIOPIA: The lives of millions are at risk in Ethiopia, a vast land where rain can mean the difference between life and death, writes Frank McDonald.
Climate change has been identified as one of the principal factors in bringing famine once again to Ethiopia. For it was the failure of last year's rainy seasons - one long and one short - that now threatens the lives of 11.3 million of its people.
"Unfriendly weather has been happening everywhere, even in Europe", Mr Simon Mechale, head of Ethiopia's Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Commission, said here yesterday. "But it doesn't lead to famine in Europe. In this country, it does because of the underlying problem of poverty."
Mr Mechale was speaking to an Ireland Aid delegation headed by the Minister of State for Overseas Development, Mr Tom Kitt, on the first morning of a four-day fact-finding visit to Ethiopia. Ireland was among the earliest to respond to an appeal for emergency relief, contributing €2.45 million earlier this month.
On his first visit to this vast country, Mr Kitt said he was "very conscious of the crisis facing everybody here in dealing with the food security issue". Even getting the estimated 1.4 million tonnes of food needed over the next six months to those most in need of it represented a "huge logistical challenge".
Though noted as a proud people, with a heritage stretching back to the legendary Queen of Sheba, the Ethiopians last month joined the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) in appealing for emergency supplies of food to plug the drought-induced gap between what they can produce themselves and what is actually needed.
Ms Georgia Shaver, American director of the WFP in Ethiopia, has been heartened by the positive response from many donor countries, including Ireland. Even India has pledged 100,000 tonnes of wheat, though the cost of transporting it here through the Red Sea port state of Djibouti has been estimated at $17 million.
A total of 600,000 tonnes has been pledged so far and the cash donations are also seen as vital in helping to defray transport and distribution costs. But Ms Shaver expressed surprise that some EU countries had not yet responded to the appeal, even though one of them - Italy - has a history of involvement with Ethiopia.
"Our aim is to avoid the serious famine that happened in the past", she said, referring to the levels of starvation in Ethiopia in 1984/85 that prompted Bob Geldof to launch the Band Aid appeal. "But destitution is on the rise and the problem will only be exacerbated unless steps are taken to deal with the underlying problem."
Mr Mechale said long-term solutions would involve improving the country's water management - to make it more effective in terms of irrigation - and also encouraging "voluntary resettlement" of people living in areas worst affected by drought. But capital investment was needed.
Asked how he felt about having to appeal to other countries for aid, he said there was no other option to prevent people dying. He also expressed Ethiopia's appreciation of the contributions being made by donors, including the "very concrete activities" being funded by Ireland Aid which Mr Kitt will be viewing in Tigray tomorrow.
On Saturday, at a so-called "big table" meeting in Addis Ababa between the Ethiopian authorities and donor countries, the Minister of State said he would be lobbying his EU colleagues to do more. The EU Commission has pledged €70 million in emergency relief, but there is no definite indication when this will be actually be paid.
Yesterday, Mr Kitt paid a courtesy call on the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Mr Meles Zenawi, and met Mr Sufian Ahmed, the minister for finance and economic development, before hosting a reception last night for the Irish aid organisations here.