In February 2006 Christian Aid launched its East Africa appeal in response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia and southern Somalia. Thanks to the generous support of our supporters, the appeal raised more than £2 million.
More than 11 million people were in urgent need of assistance after successive droughts had devastated the region. Pastoralists – people who depend on their livestock – and small-scale farmers were most severely affected.
Pastoralists lost up to 95% of their herds. In Kenya they were not able to sell their cattle as a last resort because the livestock market had collapsed. Many, having lost everything, moved to the outskirts of larger towns. Here they are labelled ‘drop-outs.’
The cost of such huge losses must not be underestimated. Christian Aid partner the Ethiopian Evangelical Church of Mekane Yesus conducted a study with pastoralists in one part of Ethiopia and found that they had lost more than 265,000 cattle, camels, sheep and goats to the value of £17 million.
Fire-fighting
Before the appeal, Christian Aid released £20,000 from its general emergency funds simply to help save lives and prevent the situation from getting any worse. This was sent to our partner Northern Aid who used it to tanker drinking water to drought-affected communities in the Mandera district of northern Kenya.
When money began to come in from the appeal, Christian Aid released further funds to partners for the purchase and distribution of animal fodder and seeds for planting.
Recovery
As the situation stabilised, Christian Aid worked with partners to identify ways to help people recover from the emergency.
By its close, the appeal had raised £2,376,616. This has enabled Christian Aid to fund projects with eleven partners working predominantly with pastoralist communities in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.
This work has included:
supplying 34 rainwater harvesting tanks to schools, clinics and churches in Kenya, providing 32,541 people with a reliable source of water
excavating 26 sub-surface dams and 10 ponds to catch and conserve rain water for farming and watering livestock in Kenya
distributing 20,000 forage tree seedlings for planting in Ethiopia
building 28 wells and one large gravity fed water system in the Kedida Gamela district of southern Ethiopia, increasing the percentage of people who have access to clean water in the region from 9.6% to 70.3% and reaching 45,611 people.
Problems
However this work is not easy. Christian Aid was unable to develop its programme in Somalia because of chronic political instability in the region. Our work in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia was hampered by flooding and local conflicts, as well as the knock-on effects of insecurity in Somalia.
Climate change has also meant that helping people to simply get back what they had before is, in some cases, not a viable option. Traditionally, people had adapted their way of life to the often harsh climate. But over the past 25 years the frequency of drought in the region has increased four-fold, making it impossible for people to manage in the same ways as they had before.
Furthermore, development of any sort in the region has been curtailed by poor government policy, with pastoralists routinely neglected. Underinvestment in things like veterinary services, livestock marketing and animal transport has meant that it has become very hard for pastoralists to market their cattle and profit from cattle rearing.
We’ve undertaken several pieces of research with local partners to identify ways pastoralists can campaign for the things they need to further adapt their way of life.
Christian Aid will continue to support and develop local campaigns with partners while building on its international campaigns so that the small, local changes pastoralists are making are not undone by global problems, such as climate change and unfair trade rules.