Attachments
Overview
Ethiopia faced complex multiple crises including impacts of recurrent climatic shocks such as droughts and floods, the aftermath of the conflict in Northern Ethiopia Tigray region, and escalating insecurities in Afar, Amhara, and Oromia regions and economic challenges. These intersected challenges exacerbated food insecurity and malnutrition leading to 15.4 million people [1] reported as food insecure by the second half of the year.
Consistent with its commitment towards the achievement of SDG 2 and 17, WFP’s response in Ethiopia aimed to provide lifesaving food and nutrition assistance to crisis-affected populations. In addition, WFP implemented resilience-building activities targeting communities affected by recurrent climate shocks to address the root causes of food insecurity and to strengthen communities' responses to shocks. In addition, WFP continued to be an enabler of humanitarian response by providing efficient and innovative end-to-end supply chain services.
In 2023, WFP faced funding shortfalls amid increasing needs, overall, the operation received USD 875 million in funding (49 per cent of the annual requirements). Working with the Government and partners, WFP provided 304,000 metric tons (MT) of food (27 percent of the target) and USD 33 million of cash-based transfers (19 percent of the target) to 9.5 million people including (571,000 people living with disabilities). Of these, 8.5 million were people affected by shocks, 800,000 were refugees, and 200,000 IDPs. The Sudan crisis led to an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, exacerbating the needs amidst reduced resources for the refugee response. Despite these challenges, WFP responded by providing Fortified Biscuits at the point of entry.
Following the temporary food assistance pause in June due to reports of food diversion, WFP rolled out enhanced control and accountability measures across its operations, seizing the opportunity to reform and modernize the 40-year-old assistance system to guarantee food assistance reaches the most vulnerable people. These measures increased efficiency, transparency, and accountability to the affected population and the donor community.
These included the introduction of new vulnerability-based targeting approaches; digital registration and beneficiary identity management; the introduction of last-mile solutions to enhance tracking of food; and strengthened monitoring and community feedback mechanisms. Gender was also integrated with targeting and registration to ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable. Additionally, WFP improved its cooperating partner management including establishing new partnerships through a competitive selection, while conducting due diligence and capacity assessments. After a successful pilot in Tigray, WFP resumed its refugee and relief operations in October and December, respectively.
To address all forms of malnutrition, WFP implemented nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific activities reaching 2.6 million beneficiaries with over 35,000 MT of specialized nutritious food. WFP provided nutrition support to 1.6 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls (PBWG) and children aged between 6-59 months to treat moderate acute malnutrition. The fresh food voucher programme, designed to improve the consumption of high-quality, nutrient-dense foods and to prevent all forms of malnutrition was scaled up to cover three regions (Amhara, Afar, and Somali regions). WFP provided a conditional fresh food voucher to 143,890 PBWG and children valued at a total of USD 6 million. These vouchers were redeemed through 300 selected local retailers. This combined with social behaviour communication (SBC) intervention, contributed to improvements in dietary diversity and nutrition practices among women and children.
In line with the food systems transformation agenda, WFP shifted its efforts from short-term interventions to long-term multidimensional approaches to programme. Following this, WFP implemented food systems-based and resilience-building interventions reaching 67,000 households (336,620 beneficiaries including smallholder farmers and agro-pastoralists). WFP collaborated with aggregators, smallholder farmer groups, and the Gambella Bureau of Agriculture to support production and increase access to markets for smallholder farmers. Through the local procurement initiative, WFP procured 5,000 MT of maize injecting USD 3.5 million into the local economy. This maize was distributed in refugee camps in the Gambella region demonstrating the effectiveness of local solutions and WFP’s ability to operate across the humanitarian-development nexus. At the end of the year, the initiative started linking smallholder farmers and aggregators to sustainable markets as part of its transition strategy. In Somali region, resilience-building activities focused on land rehabilitation and water conservation restoring 300 hectares of land.
As a critical safety net for children, WFP scaled up its school meals programme to reach approximately 372,000 (34 percent increase from 2022) school going children including those in conflict-affected areas. WFP school meals contributed to a 5 percent increase in net enrollment. As a critical avenue for linking education with the agriculture sector, the home-grown school feeding programme facilitates linkages between smallholder farmers and schools, WFP provided 3,000 MT of in-kind fortified foods and USD 2.7 million in cash under the home-grown school feeding programme. A total of 2,600 MT of locally grown, diversified and nutritious foods were procured from local smallholder farmers injecting an additional USD 3.8 million into the local markets.
As part of strengthening Government capacities and systems, WFP provided technical support to the Government to expand its shock-response Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) focusing on digital management information systems and payments to the drought and conflict-affected populations, extending coverage to 325 woredas.
Additionally, WFP supported the Government to develop tools to enhance early warning, emergency preparedness and response, supply chain, and anticipatory action. Specifically, WFP supported the review and finalization of the drought and flood anticipatory action plans for Somali Region, and the development of a draft drought anticipatory action plan for Oromia region. These efforts contributed to the institutionalization of anticipatory action within the existing Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and early warning systems.
WFP provided logistics services to the Government and humanitarian partners facilitating humanitarian response, particularly in hard-to-reach areas. WFP provided on-demand supply chain services (storage, transportation, and warehouse) to 40 partners. Through its United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) WFP transported 5,266 passengers and 27 MT of humanitarian cargo. The Logistics Cluster provided 62 humanitarian organizations with storage space service of 12,800 m2 for relief commodities and transported 8,300 MT of cargo through various humanitarian corridors in Ethiopia.