Ethiopia

Factors or causes of humanitarian need

The main causes of humanitarian needs are related to insecurity, recurrent droughts, floods, disease, and worsening social impacts. The frequent displacement, loss of livelihood, destruction of assets, and deterioration of living conditions are severely affecting vulnerable people including children, women, persons with disabilities, and older people. Continued conflict and climate shocks have devastated civilian infrastructure and access to basic services such as WASH, health, and education. In 2023, several parts of Ethiopia experienced a severe food and nutrition crisis due to deterioration of food access and availability caused by the disruption of agriculture production – at households and community levels – markets, farming, trade, and insecurity in the Amhara and Oromia regions. As a result, in 2024, many affected people will continue to struggle to survive and may resort to harmful coping strategies that expose both adults and children to serious protection risks if no assistance is provided to them. Food shortages, limited access to land and pastures and lack of livelihood opportunities, amidst an environment of insecurity and violence, put more displaced women at a higher risk of gender-based violence. In addition, the significant inflation has been further exacerbated by worldwide price rises for agricultural inputs and food staples.

This plan will prioritize the response to humanitarian needs related to:

El- Niño-driven drought

As such, El Niño is now causing a new drought in the country. The below-average rains between June and August 2023 (kiremt rains), caused a poor harvest, affecting millions of lives and livestock and has triggered an alarming increase in food insecurity and acute malnutrition. Drought has accelerated crop damage, loss of pasture and water sources, resulting in asset depletions, disease outbreaks, and migration. The Meher seasonal assessment, conducted between November and December 2023, has identified around 10.4 million people who need food assistance. Approximately 80 per cent of the drought affected population are in Northeast of the country , with the remaining 20 per cent in lowland areas. This drought comes at a time when communities are still recovering from previous crises, such of the two-year conflict in the north (2020-2022).

To meet the urgent needs of the population in drought affected areas, the Response plan will focus on urgent scale-up of food, water, nutrition, health, livestock feed treatment and vaccination, and Multi-Purpose Cash. To ensure food assistance reaches the most food insecure households in the affected communities, vulnerability-based targeting (VBT) will be used, involving the government, communities, partners the participation of communities and relevant stakeholders.

Disease outbreaks

Cholera, Malaria, and Measles outbreaks, continue to take lives in Ethiopia. The present Cholera outbreak is one of the longest ever recorded in Ethiopia. Its continued spread is due to low latrine coverage, open defecation, and less than 20 per cent of people living in Cholera-affected woredas having access to safe drinking water. Additional challenges that inhibit cholera response efforts include security/access issues, population movements, limited funding, and a lack of preparedness in cholera-prone woredas. Furthermore, the high rates of both malnutrition (stunting and wasting) and Malaria in the country increase vulnerability to Cholera infection. Co-morbidities can impair the immune system, increase the metabolic rate, and reduce the appetite of the children and increase death risk of malnourished children under treatment.

The response plan aims to scale up the immediate response to these outbreaks by providing essential life-saving health services, vaccinations, capacity building to health workers, emergency and durable water interventions, and emergency sanitation and hygiene promotion. Additionally, through the third strategic objective of this plan, the humanitarian community aims to improve the population’s resilience to diseases by strengthening linkages with development partners to address structural health issues.

Displacement

The main shocks as conflicts and climate shocks continue to drive waves of displacement in Ethiopia, while the lack of durable solutions and recovery interventions have left substantial number of people in protracted displacement. As a result, over 4.5 million individuals are displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance and durable solutions. The main drivers of displacement are conflict, climate shocks , and social tension. The highest concentration of IDPs is found in Somali, Oromia, and Tigray Regions. Conflict remains the primary cause of internal displacement, creating urgent needs for food, shelter, and food security. The humanitarian conditions for both IDPs and returning IDPs are poor, necessitating commitment to dignified, sustainable, and principled responses despite funding challenges.

The response will target the immediate humanitarian needs to the displaced population by implementing several lifesaving activities under strategic objective one and will support expanding access to basic services under strategic objective two. However, the response to the needs of the large numbers of protracted IDPs, will require, in addition to the lifesaving activities and access to basic services, a holistic, long-term approach involving the government, humanitarian actors, development partners, civil society, and IDPs.

Protection risks

Due to the multiple shocks affecting Ethiopia, the population in several areas of the country has been exposed to severe protection risks. In particular, both conflict and climatic shocks have led to frequent displacement, heightening vulnerable populations’ risk of GBV and child protection violations, with child marriage and child labor often being used as a coping strategy and family separation increasing children’s vulnerability. Displacements and returns have been complicated by a lack of civil documentation and documentation securing tenure, sometimes leading to limits to freedom of movement, access to resources and housing, land, and property (HLP). The presence of mines and other explosive ordinance also has an impact on the return and resettlement of IDPs and has an adverse social, economic, and environmental impact on affected communities. Finally, in areas impacted by conflict or clashes, civilians have been exposed to attacks, and access by humanitarian actors has been limited due to the security situation.

The HRP proposes a response to these risks in line with the Humanitarian Country Team’s (HCT) Protection Strategy, which focuses on the centrality of protection, on ensuring that the system is fit to deliver an inclusive humanitarian response in accordance with humanitarian principles (for example, through tools that ensure protection mainstreaming and protection-sensitive funding decisions), and on enabling an adequate protection response, especially through advocacy on specific protection issues that require HCT attention. The response will prioritize life-saving activities for all categories of persons in need affected by shocks. Identified shocks are conflict, climatic shocks (particularly floods and drought), and disease outbreaks. Life-saving activities will be complemented by actions to ensure sustained access to services for all categories of beneficiaries. A third level of intervention will focus on activities more oriented towards resilience, in order to increase local capabilities and make the population less exposed to the shocks, especially for those shocks that are recurrent.

The response approach

The Government of Ethiopia (GoE), supported by the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) will continue to lead the overall humanitarian response in Ethiopia. At the national level, the key joint strategic forum is the Disaster Risk Management Technical Working Group (DRM-TWG) which plays a key role in the coordination of the humanitarian response. It is chaired by the Ethiopia Disaster Risk Management Commission (EDRMC) and co-chaired by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The inter-cluster coordination mechanism at the national and sub-national levels will support the implementation of the HRP. Clusters are co-led by the Government line Ministries, the UN Cluster Lead Agencies, and other humanitarian partners. Besides the national Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG), there are seven sub-national ICCGs, covering Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, Somali, Tigray, and the Southwestern part of the county (Sidama, South West Ethiopia Peoples’, Southern Ethiopia and Central Ethiopia regions). This decentralized approach enables a coordinated response to sudden onsets and complex emergencies which require agile, effective, and principled multi-sectoral response.

The humanitarian community will also closely coordinate with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS) which has 12 regional offices and 35 zonal branches, working in partnership with Red Cross Movement members including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and 10 participating national societies in support to emergency responses in the most disaster affected areas in the country. With the aim of enhancing the operational coordination with the clusters, the ERCS has been granted an observer seat in the ICCG and the Rapid Response Mechanism Coordination Working Group, while ICRC has an observer seat in the HCT.

The humanitarian response will focus on the provision of urgent emergency humanitarian assistance to enable survival and the reduction of protection threats and risks for the most vulnerable population through the First objective of the HRP, while through the second strategic objective, the response will facilitate access to cross-sectoral and integrated essential basic services to a larger vulnerable population group affected by both chronic and acute shocks. The third strategic objective will focus on enhancing the resilience of affected communities and strengthening their capacity to withstand shocks. The activities included under each strategic objective will be costed and monitored during the implementation of the response.

The response will include also a preparedness and contingency planning approach to respond to all risks identified in the HNO such as climate shocks expected to increase as a result of the El Niño. Contingency workplans will be included in the national and Area ICCGs taking on consideration the seasonality character of some of the identified risks.

In addition to the contingency planning, the response will include an anticipatory action approach aimed at mitigating the forecasted impacts of El Niño in terms of drought and floods.

The need for a stronger and more effective humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus approach The humanitarian community acknowledges that humanitarian action alone cannot address the causes and drivers that lead to humanitarian needs in the first place. This is true in Ethiopia where droughts and floods have been increasing in duration and frequency over the past several years due to notable accelerated changes in the regional climate. This combined with protracted insecurity situations in some areas of the country have pushed increasing numbers of people who need humanitarian aid.

Through the 2024 humanitarian response plan will continue to support building resilience, through the HRP third Strategic Objective, that includes specific humanitarian activities that can make a contribution to resilience building and laying the foundation for recovery. The same time the 2024 HRP represents an urgent call for increased engagement and coordination with development and peace actors to work to address the root causes and drivers of humanitarian needs and vulnerabilities – whether this is via area-based approaches or on addressing broader structural drivers, or both. This is especially important as the ability of humanitarian actors to meet growing needs in Ethiopia is reaching its limit.

In acknowledging the limits of the humanitarian actions the ICCG has identified some priority interventions for the development and resilience partners, that if implemented will contribute to decrease the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance and contribute to build long term resilience.

Suggested priority activities for development / resilience partners:

Education

Support rehabilitation/re-establishment of schools, including re-staffing schools and training of teachers, promote strong PTA (parent-teacher associations), roll out school feeding programs and participatory school garden programs, include education for peace/social cohesion in school curricula and Promote girls' education and empowerment.

Health

Strengthen the prevention of recurrent disease outbreaks such immunization, provision of safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, as well as vector-control interventions including the distribution of bed nets. These interventions are ever crucial in minimizing morbidity and mortality of recurrent disease outbreaks.

The Health Cluster will continue to map both developmental and emergency interventions from partners to foster collaboration with development partners to build resilient health systems strengthen advocacy for longer-term, development funding to address root causes of disease outbreaks.

Food security

Promote food processing and preservation to enhance availability of food throughout the year, introduce conditional food assistance, where feasible, to incentivize communities to rehabilitate infrastructure, support climate-smart agriculture in drought prone areas, support research into crops that are resilient to climate shocks, improve resilience to uneven/erratic rainfall through expansion of irrigation and water harvesting systems, and support agricultural initiatives that empower women, as they are disproportionately affected by drought

Nutrition

A holistic nutrition centric approach by humanitarian, development, and peace partners aimed at building resilience in vulnerable communities is required. In addition to strengthening community-led solutions, such as enhanced community conversations, community-based nutrition, local food-based complementary feeding, supporting smallholder farmers-hydroponics, that are sustainable, culturally appropriate, and responsive to community needs.

Protection

Support education and empowerment of women and girls to reduce protection risks, including through economic empowerment and livelihoods support, facilitate access to legal identity documentation, and strengthen community-based protection structures.

Facilitate access to justice for survivors of GBV strengthen the capacity of service providers, including government partners, educate children and communities about children’s rights, promote gender equality, respect for human rights and empower young people, ensure access to birth certificates and support Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration for former children associated to armed groups

Set up conflict resolution systems in areas where HLP disputes may lead to conflict and explore new ways of preventing and mitigating land disputes, which can lead to violence, build houses for vulnerable members of the community using cash-for-work interventions. Clear land, and remove and dispose of explosive ordnance, allowing the development of released land for productive use, and promote economic empowerment of mine-affected populations and facilitate access to medical and prolonged physical rehabilitation, psycho-social support and economic assistance, and support the implementation of international instruments to eliminate mines and explosive hazards.

WASH

Strengthen investment in water harvesting during rainy season, build, rehabilitate and maintain WaSH facilities close to population settlements, promote the transition from generator/diesel to solar power to improve sustainability, strengthen transdisciplinary approach: water for people, animals, and crops (One health one water).

Strengthening the Coordination with development partners

United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework Development (2025 – 2030)

The humanitarian community will continue to work closely with development partners to ensure a systematized approach to the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus. During 2024, the design of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) will be completed. It will cover the period from July 2025 – June 2030. The Common Country Analysis (CCA) that will be reviewed in 2024 will also pave the way for the inclusion of a systematized approach to the HDP nexus through a focused analysis. The CCA will delve into existing resources and analysis including the Humanitarian Needs Overview. The CCA will be a living document that will be updated annually throughout the Cooperation Framework (CF) period to inform the implementation of the CF. This will enable the alignment of the CF process with humanitarian programming processes through the CF Joint Work Plans.

National HDP coordination architecture

2023 saw important progress in addressing existing institutional disconnects and fragmentation among humanitarian, development, and peace actors in Ethiopia. In May 2023, the Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team (EHCT) and the Ethiopia Development Partners Group (DPG) convened their first joint meeting to identify ways that the two major aid coordination systems in Ethiopia could formally work together to reduce vulnerabilities and humanitarian needs over time in the country. The Development Partners Group and Humanitarian Country Team (DPG-HCT) agreed to focus collaboration in the coming years around four overarching national priorities: 1) recovery from conflict in the North; 2) building resilience to natural disasters in the lowlands; 3) advancing durable solutions for displacement; and 4) strengthening food and nutrition security. Lead sectors were also identified to mainstream the HDP approach, including via cluster-sector working group contact: WASH, Health, Education, Food and Agriculture, and Livelihoods and Protection.

At the same time, a common national-level HDP coordination architecture was established, involving government, donors, UN, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to institutionalize the collaboration. This architecture involves three levels of cooperation: 1) bi-annual DPG-HCT meetings at Head of Agency level to provide strategic direction for HDP actor collaboration in Ethiopia, with meetings chaired by Ministry of Finance, DPG co-chairs and the UN Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC); 2) the establishment of a joint technical-level HDP Accelerator Group, to socialize and operationalize a multi-stakeholder HDP approach in the country; and 3) promoting contact and collaboration between HCT clusters and the DPG’s sector working groups.

Advancing regional and area-based HDP collaboration

Recognizing that operationalizing the HDP approach requires stronger engagement at the regional and sub-national levels, the DPG-HCT also agreed to prioritize area-based collaboration and coordination. As a first step, in December 2023, the DPG-HCT, HDP Accelerator Group, the UN system and the Regional Government of Afar piloted a first HDP partner dialogue and scoping workshop in Semera, attended by over 80 government, donor, UN, local and international NGO participants. The workshop’s goal was to identify practical ways that government and partners could advance HDP collaboration and coordination in the region. During the workshop, participants developed a shared understanding of the key drivers of humanitarian needs, identified strategic areas for joint support and defined existing coordination needs and gaps. Using a similar model, over the course of 2024, further workshops will be organized in other regions to crystalize and strengthen HDP actor coordination.

The way forward in 2024

In November 2023, the DPG-HCT held its second annual meeting. Based on a review of progress so far, members agreed to advance the following key actions in 2024 to accelerate progress around the four priority areas by:

Continuing to support the establishment and institutionalization of HDP actor collaboration and coordination platforms at regional and sub-national levels, aligned and linked to national level priorities and coordination architecture and premised on strong government leadership and ownership.

Develop an evidence-based, joint DPG-HCT framework to define a common HDP approach, overarching vision, articulate priorities and identify concrete milestones for progress over a 5-year timeframe.

Strengthen transparency, alignment and coherence between humanitarian, development and peace funding streams and support multi-actor partnerships to jointly finance common resilience and HDP priorities that can prevent and reduce the impacts of crises and support transitions out of humanitarian need.

Durable Solutions for IDPs

The response for IDPs included in the present response are related mainly to covering the critical humanitarian needs. Moving toward the achievement of durable solutions for the high numbers of people who are in protracted displacement, or who were recently displaced or recently returned requires comprehensive action plans at regional level supported by a strong and inclusive durable solutions architecture. The overall lead on durable solutions in Ethiopia lies with the government, e.g. the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Peace and EDRMC, who is supported by the durable solutions architecture currently co-chaired by IOM, UNDP and UNHCR. Regional level coordination is happening in some regions such as Tigray, and Somali region, while at federal level internal consultations are ongoing with the aim of strengthening the Federal Durable Solutions Working Group (FDSWG) as driver for government/UN/NGO strategic planning and operationalization of durable solutions. The current membership of the FDSWG includes the government, UN agencies, and NGOs, with bilateral partners Specific strategies and approaches are currently under development to harmonize and support the work of regional durable solutions coordination mechanisms. In 2024, regional durable solutions action plans will be developed, implemented, and coordinated by regional durable solutions coordination groups with the technical support of the Federal Durable Solutions Working groups. The durable solutions co-chairs will play a central role in ensuring technical support are provided to regional initiatives and that the durable solutions system is anchored in the broader nexus initiative.

Aid Diversion and risk management

In 2023 the aid diversion issue in the food sector has taken a central place in the attention of the humanitarian community, and a dedicated Aid Diversion Task Force was established in 2023 to steer common action towards the resumption of food distribution and to support reform of the humanitarian sector towards greater transparency and accountability.

Partners have worked on a new quality assurance system in the delivery of food aid, which has led to the resumption of the food distribution in last quarter of 2023. However there remains a continued need for improvements in the vulnerability-based identification and targeting of beneficiaries as well as approaches to aid delivery. This will be achieved through the establishment of a Risk Management Unit(RMT) by the Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team (EHCT) and the UN Country Team (UNCT) to serve as an inter-agency platform for a common risk management approach, and to lead a continuous joint risk assessment, monitoring, mitigation, and reporting effort.

To this end, the RMT has the following 3 key objectives:

Identify and assess strategic common risks across the UN and Humanitarian Agencies to enable risk-informed decision making and agree on risk mitigation measures.

Implement joint monitoring of the implementation of the risk mitigation strategies across the agencies and facilitate joint efforts to improve risk management processes including assessment and response to potential fraud and corruption exposure.

Ensure consistency and transparency in reporting mechanism to donors and key stakeholders, including information sharing on common risks and controls.

At operational level, In the last quarter of 2023 the ICCG, in collaboration with EDRMC has initiated the update of the National Guidelines on Targeting Relief Food Assistance and its expansion to from food assistance to include an intersectoral approach to targeting. Two consultants have been recruited, and expected to start working in January 2024, to revise and deliver the national guideline on intersectoral targeting for humanitarian assistance, based on the humanitarian principles and vulnerability analysis, under the technical guidance of the national ICCG and in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, including the Government of Ethiopia, Humanitarian community, and the affected communities.

Contingency planning and preparedness

The humanitarian community will respond to sudden-onset emergencies through a strengthened and well-coordinated contingency planning at regional level and strengthened coordination of Rapid Response Mechanisms and the use of Anticipatory Action Approach.

For responding to sudden-onset emergencies and to risks identified in the HNO such as climate shocks expected to increase because of the El Niño, disease outbreaks and displacement. The ICCG and Area ICCGs will lead the preparation of contingency planning and preparedness based on seasonality of climate events, such as drought and floods, and triggers for other types of shocks. Contingency planning will also be used for responding to possible worsening of the humanitarian situation that may derive from the increased severity of any of the drivers of the humanitarian needs such as drought, disease outbreaks, or displacement.

The ICCG has established a Rapid Response Mechanism coordination group and is working on the finalization of a rapid response model that includes clear objectives, clusters’ response packages, triggers, and coordination structures at national and sub-national levels. Upon its endorsement, the model will guide inter-sectoral response under the leadership of the clusters and the ICCG and will play a critical role in leading the preparedness and rapid response for climate shocks, conflict, and disease outbreaks.