Ethiopia

Ethiopia is one of the world’s most underdeveloped countries, home to an estimated 85 million people. Its population has doubled since 1984 and is projected to more than double again by 2050. Nearly 10 per cent of the population remains chronically vulnerable to food insecurity and dependent on national safety-net programmes. Every year several million people require emergency assistance just to meet their basic needs for survival.

There has been a United Nations entity responsible for coordinating and monitoring emergency response in Ethiopia since 1984, when the Office for Emergency Operations in Ethiopia was established to help coordinate the humanitarian response to the famine.  Since then, the continued high levels of poverty and vulnerability compounded by frequent natural disasters have frequently overwhelmed national emergency response capacities, sustaining a need for external humanitarian assistance.

In 2012, OCHA’s priorities will be to continue playing a critical role in promoting a productive working relationship between the Government and the humanitarian community; to enhance coordination at all levels; to strengthen the joint assessment, needs analysis and appeal framework; and to build Government capacity at all levels for disaster risk management, particularly contingency and response planning and emergency response.

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