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FEWSNET
If forecasts indicating trends toward below-normal October-December rains hold, food insecurity in parts of southeastern and northern Ethiopia will deteriorate from already high or extreme levels.
While October-December rains are the secondary season for pastoral and agropastoral populations in these areas, they are crucial to the replenishment of water and pasture, which, despite some improvement following recent rains, remain in critically short supply.
Even if current forecasts prove inaccurate, recovery of highly and extremely food insecure populations in these areas will require several consecutive normal rainy seasons and continued assistance in rebuilding their asset bases.
Additional assistance is needed until at least June 2009, when the next rainy season in these areas is complete, to prevent further deterioration of food security conditions.
A Melka Guba villager holds her sick and malnourished child in the village around Negele, southern Oromia, Ethiopia, in this November 18, 2008 handout photo. Successive years of drought have had ...
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