Ethiopia feeding program still having trouble

	Tweet

Problems with an Ethiopian program to help 5 million chronically hungry people by giving them cash and food in exchange for work is creating “a man-made disaster,” an Ethiopian government report said on Thursday.

Ethiopia’s “Safety Net” program, launched in January with Western funding, is suffering delays in distributing cash and food to beneficiaries who are not receiving emergency food aid they would be getting if not in the program, the report said.

"The inadequate implementation of the (Safety Net program) is resulting in a man-made disaster in many areas of the country,” the Ethiopian Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission said in its report.

The program was heralded as a way to keep 5 million chronically hungry people in Ethiopia self-sufficient and off of food aid, by teaching them how to diversify their livelihoods and paying them for work on projects like building roads.

The 5 million are separate from the at least 3 million in Ethiopia this year who need emergency food aid.

The report said that by the end of May, only two months worth of food or cash transfers had been sent out to the districts, which distribute them to the recipients.

Of that, only 11 percent of cash and 44 percent of food had reached the beneficiaries. In some cases, there is not enough food in local markets to be bought with the money, the report said.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian Agriculture Ministry said the problems have mostly been fixed and the benefits are getting to at least 80 percent of the people who are owed them.

“The Safety Net is a new program and with any new program there are shortcomings but most of these have now been sorted out,” spokesman Mulugeta Debalkew said.

The program, which costs $200 million, is funded by Britain, the European Commission, the United States and the World Bank.

In April, Ethiopia said the number of those requiring emergency food aid had jumped to 3 million from earlier estimates of 2.2 million because of delays in the program’s roll-out.

Landlocked Ethiopia, after a costly 1998-2000 war with neighbor Eritrea, is struggling to feed many of its 72 million people.

RELATED STORIES:
Obesity: understanding the UK epidemic   Survivors of Childhood Polio Do Well Decades Later As They Age   Higher cigarette taxes don’t deter all smokers   Asia-Pacific battles rising cancer, heart disease   Meat, poultry to have nutrition labels by 2012: USDA   Resistance can develop fast with swine flu: report   Study: Global obesity rates double since 1980   Flu pandemic? U.S. has been there for weeks   No Law Broken In Rx Cost Row   Most believe myth that aging brings unhappiness   New methods for screening nanoparticles and interaction with human cells   MRSA superbug spreading in the community

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]