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KEY DEVELOPMENTS
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More than 10 million people in the eastern Horn of Africa currently require emergency assistance due to prolonged drought conditions, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO’s) Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU). Successive seasons of failed rains—combined with increasing food prices, conflict, and limited humanitarian access—have resulted in food insecurity, water shortages, and acute malnutrition rates above emergency thresholds.
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Acute malnutrition rates in northern and eastern Kenya and central and southern Somalia are the highest seen since 2003, far exceeding internationally accepted global acute malnutrition (GAM) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) thresholds of 15 percent and 1 to 2 percent, respectively. GAM rates among Somali refugees arriving in Ethiopia have reached 47 percent, according to FAO’s Food Security and Nutrition Working Group.
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Increasing numbers of drought- and conflict-affected people are fleeing central and southern Somalia for camps in southern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya, where assistance such as food and safe drinking water are more readily available. Approximately 1,300 Somalis are arriving each day at the Dadaab complex in northeastern Kenya, while nearly 2,000 Somalis are arriving at the Dolo Ado camps in Ethiopia each week, according to the Office of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). -
The U.S. Government (USG) has provided nearly $366.3 million in FY 2011 to date in response to drought conditions in the eastern Horn of Africa. On July 6, 2011, USAID activated a regional Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) in Nairobi, Kenya, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to monitor regional drought conditions and coordinate response activities with other donors. USAID also stood up a Response Management Team in Washington, D.C., to support the DART and coordinate USG humanitarian efforts.