Ethiopia: Humanitarian Response Plan Mid Year Review (November 2022)

Changes in context

During the first half of 2022 Ethiopia has seen growing humanitarian needs driven by the lack of a peaceful solution to the conflict in northern Ethiopia; the continuation of violence in other parts of the country; and the expansion of the drought affecting the south and east of the country.

The humanitarian truce in Tigray region, that was announced in March has contributed to improved delivery of humanitarian assistance and allowed humanitarian partners to scale up their response to the people in need in the region. In Afar and Amhara, humanitarian operations were also scaled-up this year as the level of conflict reduced and hundreds of thousands of people returned to their homes, with millions of people assisted, though some near the Tigray boundary remained hard to reach. In Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz humanitarian operations have also been significantly constrained by insecurity and lack of access resulting in reduced or absence of humanitarian partners in some areas.

The drought continues to worsen in scope and scale and is affecting more areas and more people. Recent forecast shows high chances of drier than average conditions and insufficient rainfall from October to December with the prospect of yet another failed rainy season later in the year, the fifth in a row, and the situation will likely continue to drive high humanitarian needs well into 2023. A drought response plan was prepared in April 2022 and updated in July 2022 that has seen an expansion of the affected areas from 157 woredas in the first iteration of the Plan to 391 by the end of June.

Floods have also contributed to increasing humanitarian needs in particular as a result of the heavy Kiremt rainfall occurred between June and August 2022, in the northwestern, western and central parts of the country. The response to floods is led by the National Flood Task Force who prepared a flood contingency plan and flood response plan to provide directions and guidance at federal level, and directions for the regional and sub-regional partners to adapt to local contexts and come up with their own response planning.

As a result of all these developments the humanitarian needs have exponentially increased in the last few months. The number of people targeted for multi-sector lifesaving assistance for the rest of the year has increased by 11 per cent. In the second half of the year the humanitarian needs could increase because of worsening of the drought conditions or any expansion or scale up of the conflict/ violence ongoing in some areas of the country. Humanitarian partners will continue to monitor the situation and prepare contingency and response plans to respond to new humanitarian needs that may arise.

During the first half of the year humanitarian partners faced many challenges related to the limited funding, limited number of partners in some areas of the country that have high humanitarian needs, in addition to the serious access impediments, mainly in areas affected by the conflict and violence that limited the capacity of partners to reach out and deliver humanitarian assistance to affected populations.

These challenges have resulted in low level of coverage against the HRP planned targets.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs