Afar is one of the drought prone regions with major shocks and hazards associated with the recurrence of drought that disrupts the livelihood of the people, apart from crop failure and food shortages, the recurrence of drought often aggravates the vulnerability of household livelihood through the devastation of livestock resources which is the major source of livelihood. The region is also characterized by underdeveloped infrastructure and the lack of social services where the population has the least access to social services particularly education, health, water supply, etc.
According of the Afar regional State data declaration, in our project site there’re10, 878 people were highly affected in 2008. FSA has involved into emergency response starting from 2008 back. We have supported more than 10,878 people in 2008 from grant support of The Society of International Mission in Ethiopia (SIM-Ethiopia) donation. Since then FSA involved in to emergency situations at any time the regional government declares the emergency situation up to 2010.
As the effect of 2015 Elin no case FAS engaged in to emergency response works. Here in this 2015 we have supported 2500 malnourished children, pregnant and lactating women of Afar in Dulessa, Awash Fentale and Galaalo districts, as relief fund from SIM-E. This support is now ongoing.
The problem for the emergency response is occurred as result of very poor performance of 2015 sugum and Karma (June-July) rain in all parts of afar region that characterized by late onset, erratic nature, low coverage, low amount and high variation in temporal and spatial distribution; the current humanitarian situation is becoming very serious and at alarming emergency stage.
The issue is becoming beyond the community and the regional government capacity and the region government announced and make call of all humanitarian organization involvement as per their capacity, in 2015. The emergency situation still continued as a result of drought and followed now with high flooding situation since April 2016.