Ethiopia receives emergency money to fight malnutrition

The U.N.'s Emergency Response Fund has released six million dollars to Ethiopia. The country is going through severe malnutrition, due to a large shortfall in food. The rainy season in Ethiopia was not wet enough and caused the shortage in food.

From the IRIN, we read more of the emergency response.

Ethiopia is facing challenges in providing food, health, nutrition, water and sanitation, emergency shelter, agriculture and livelihoods, according to the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Fidele Sarassoro.

To counter these challenges, the UN has allocated US$6 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

“I have directed the humanitarian community jointly to agree on priority areas in which this new money can immediately be put to use," Sarassoro said.

At the same time, the federal Disaster Risk Management and Food Security Sector (DRMFSS) has announced that rising malnutrition and food insecurity were a growing concern and likely to lead to 6.2 million Ethiopians relying on food aid, out of a population of approximately 77 million.

At present, 4.9 million people in the country benefit from relief food.

According to the DRMFSS, the country has a shortfall of 176,000T of food. However, this is likely to increase to 390,000T in the months up to December 2009.

"Because of the existing shortfall, only three of the six planned rounds of food allocations have been distributed to date," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a statement on 20 July.