Addis Ababa June 9/2022 /ENA/The Government of Ethiopia is working in close collaboration with international and national humanitarian organizations to effectively support people affected by disasters in the country, according to the National Risk Management Commission (NRMC).
NRMC Commissioner Mitiku Kassa told ENA that the government has been working with around 10 clusters organized under multilateral, bilateral and international as well as local NGOs.
“Through this mechanism we are able to mobilize food and non-food resources to address man made and natural made disasters across the country,” he added.
According to him, the international organizations have strong relationship with the Government of Ethiopia because of different coordination systems.
“This helps the government to discuss thoroughly about achievements, challenges and resources mobilization strategy in order to speed up the response and to make the response mechanism more efficient and effective.”
However, he stated that there is a huge gap to be filled by the international community and the government is working strongly with partners to bring in more resources to meet the need.
The commissioner revealed that the highest percentage share of food and non-food supply is being provided by the Government of Ethiopia and its people.
More than 20 million Ethiopians affected by man made and natural calamities have been receiving humanitarian aid across Ethiopia, Mitiku said, adding that 60 percent of the total relief assistance has so been covered by the government and the remaining by donor organizations.
“There is huge gap that needs to be filled by the international community. The government is working strongly with partners to discuss thoroughly gaps and to bring more resources in order to fill the gap. If you take some regional states, we are now forced to reduce the ration size from 50 kg to 20kg. That has negative implication from the beneficiary side.”
Despite the strong relationship among all partners at multilateral, bilateral, international and local NGOs, there are many constraints regarding resources mobilization as there is huge demand for humanitarian assistance, the commissioner underscored.
“The first one is the frequency of disaster, be it man made or natural disaster. So it is intense, that is the first case. The second case is the Russia-Ukraine war, because most of the donors have diverted their attention to support Ukraine.”
Mitiku urged the international community to step up humanitarian support to Ethiopia by understanding the context and its geographic location in the Horn of Africa, which is frequently affected by La Nina, El Nino and various other disasters.
Ethiopia in the meantime needs to diversify its existing resource mobilization strategy to speed up humanitarian response.
“We need to diversify the resource mobilization strategy. We need to look for non-traditional donors as well as try to mobilize more resources from domestic level, from private sectors, and the community; because we have rich culture in mobilizing resources to address the needy ones whenever they are man made or natural disasters in our country.”
Regarding the humanitarian operation in Tigray, there is huge and tremendous improvement, the commissioner stated.
“We will continue this momentum and keep collaboration with partners to address people across the country.”