The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Ethiopian Government Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) appealed today for US$73m to provide food rations to over 750,000 refugees in Ethiopia, over the next six months. WFP will completely run out of food for refugees by October, leaving vulnerable families who are dependent on food assistance at risk of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, susceptibility to diseases\/infection and increased protection risks, the three agencies warn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to protracted funding shortfalls, WFP has already been forced to cut rations for 750,000 registered refugees living in 22 camps and five sites in hosting communities in Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Somali and Tigray regions of Ethiopia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Food rations for refugees in Ethiopia were first reduced by 16 percent in November 2015, by 40 percent in November 2021, and by 50 percent in June 2022. Food insecurity amongst the refugees has risen as a result of the cuts and is even further compounded by current global limitations to food availability, economic shocks, rising costs of food and energy, the fallout of COVID-19, conflict and insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To understand the impact of ration cuts on the food security and socio-economic situation of refugees, WFP, UNHCR and RRS conducted a rapid assessment in April which was based on 1,215 households residing in camps located in Afar, Beneshangul-Gumuz, Gambella, and Somali regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The results show that more households continued to adopt negative coping strategies by reducing the number of meals eaten in a day, consuming less expensive or less preferred foods, or limiting the portion of the meals served. More households reported to have engaged in demeaning activities, including engaging children in income generation activities, the collection and sale of firewood, while several borrowed cash, relying on friends\/relatives for food. This forces refugees to rely on the resources of the hosting community and environment they live in which also increases the likelihood of resource-based conflicts between refugees and host communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More resources must be mobilized urgently to meet immediate food and non-food needs of refugees to avert further suffering, whilst similar investments are made to enable sustainable food solutions embedded in the commitments made under the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR)[1]<\/a> and the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF)[2]<\/a> for refugees and hosting communities through livelihoods and cash programmes, in line with the UNHCR and RRS strategies. As a short-term measure, WFP and its partners continue to prioritize the needs of children aged 6 to 23 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women under the undernutrition prevention programme (blanket supplementary feeding). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Ethiopian Government Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) appealed today for US$73m to provide food rations to over 750,000 refugees in Ethiopia, over the next six months. WFP will completely run out of food for refugees by October, leaving vulnerable families who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykenya.co.ke\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}