KEY MESSAGES

• The crisis is not over – although the number of people facing famine has fallen to 250 000 in Somalia, the impact of the drought and severe food emergency will extend well into 2012 across the Horn of Africa.

• There are some signs of hope – good ongoing short rains and coordinated, integrated humanitarian assistance are producing positive effects: pastures are growing, water sources are being refilled, etc.

I. HIGHLIGHTS/KEY PRIORITIES

· Three aid workers on a monitoring mission in Mataban, Hirran Province, Somalia died when a gunman opened fire on 23 December.

· Latest reports from UNICEF and KRCS indicate that flood waters in Kenya are subsiding, with most displaced communities returning to their homes.

· Inter-communal conflict in Moyale leaves 37 people dead, thousands displaced.

· Two grenades thrown at a club in Wajir district in north-eastern Kenya near the Somali border wounded at least seven people on 24 December.

Dear friend,

In the decades I've been working to solve global problems, I've never seen a crisis like the one we're currently tackling in the Horn of Africa.

Millions of people have been displaced by the worst drought and famine in a generation. They need food, water, shelter — and they also need nets.

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Six années consécutives de sécheresse ont aggravé les problèmes d’eau à Djibouti, l’un des pays du monde où les ressources en eau sont les plus limitées. Il n’y tombe en moyenne que 150 mm de pluie par an. Près de la moitié des habitants des régions rurales n’ont pas accès à l’eau potable.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

INTRODUCTION

• An estimated 12 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in East Africa .

• Aid agencies in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya have reported high rates of acute malnutrition as well as large numbers of livestock deaths and other indicators of livelihood distress.

• Numerous factors, including drought, the protracted conflict in Somalia, rising food prices, seasonal floods and localised resource conflicts are contributing to a deepening crisis.

AusAID, together with UniQuest and the University of Queensland (UQ), is helping to improve skills for dryland farming in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Tunisia.

Food production on dryland in African countries is particularly important to ensure food security. However, despite efforts to introduce more sustainable and productive systems such as conservation farming and agroforestry, African farming is still governed by traditional slash and burn techniques.

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MOGADISHU — The first Djiboutian contingent of 200 soldiers landed in Mogadishu Tuesday to join the African Union force battling Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab forces in Somalia, a government official said. "Djibouti deployed its first contingent to Somalia today to help the country restore peace and stability," Mohamed Abdirahman, a Somali security official, told reporters.

"We are desperately in need of military support to eliminate the threat of Al-Shebab," Abdirahman added. "The first contingent consists of 200 men, and others will follow in the days to come."