KEY DEVELOPMENTS

· The Government of Ethiopia (GoE)-led multi-agency belg assessment concluded during the week of June 25, with preliminary results indicating a near-complete harvest failure in many belg areas due to delayed and poor mid-February-to-May belg rains. The most affected areas include Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP), Oromiya, southern Tigray, and eastern Amhara regions, according to the U.N. World Food Program (WFP). The final belg assessment report is scheduled for release in late July, pending federal Disaster Risk Management and Food Security Sector (DRMFSS) endorsement, and will determine the level of relief assistance the GoE will require and authorize for the remainder of 2012 in the Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD).

· Humanitarian organizations continue to respond to the ongoing malnutrition crisis in Ethiopia’s SNNP Region, where admissions of acutely malnourished children to therapeutic feeding centers (TFCs) rose for the sixth consecutive month in May, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The May TFC admission total of nearly 15,000 represents an 18 percent increase from admissions reported in April and is commensurate with the more than 14,000 admissions reported in May 2011. TFC admissions between January and May 2012 totaled more than 51,000, a 24 percent increase from the 42,000 admissions reported during the same period in 2011.

· In FY 2011 and FY 2012 to date, the U.S. Government (USG) has provided nearly $1.2 billion in humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa. Of the total, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) has provided more than $57 million to date in FY 2012 for agriculture and food security, economic recovery and market systems (ERMS), health, nutrition, protection, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions, as well as for humanitarian coordination and information management and the distribution of relief commodities. USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) has provided approximately $408 million in food-related assistance to the region to date in FY 2012.