How UNICEF UK is raising funds for children
threatened by drought and rising food prices in Ethiopia
Five-year-old Khesna Ibro, who is severely
malnourished, drinks therapeutic milk at the UNICEF-supported feeding
unit of Bissidimo Hospital in Oromiya Region, Ethiopia
©
UNICEF/HQ08-0440/Grum Tegene
Increasing food prices are being felt in
shops and markets around the world. For people in the UK, this may mean
eating out less often, buying economy brands or eating more vegetables
and less meat. In countries like Ethiopia, however, the impact is far
more severe and could end up costing thousands of children’s lives.
A few weeks ago, Ethiopian farmer Ibro Bekeri Yusef carried his
five-year-old daughter all day to reach a UNICEF-supported feeding unit
at Bissidimo Hospital. “I have seven children and we used to live well
with the money I earned,” he told UNICEF. “But now the rains have failed
and the price of grain has gone up. We can’t afford to buy any food and
we have no water. My other children are also suffering but I brought
Khesna because she is the worst off.”
Ethiopia is one of the countries hardest hit by the combination of
drought and rising food prices. Many people in the country are
subsistence farmers who depend on the food they grow to survive.
Irrigation systems are often poor or non-existent, leaving the farmers
totally dependent on rainfall to water their crops. If the rains fail,
as they have this year, their only option is to buy food in local
markets. The difference this year is that high global food prices have
pushed local prices up beyond what many Ethiopians can afford, taking
this fallback option away from large numbers of people.
As a result, 75,000 children under the age of five in
drought-affected areas face severe acute malnutrition and require
immediate therapeutic care to survive. Around 4.6 million people in
Ethiopia are in immediate need of humanitarian aid.
“In most of the drought-affected areas, people are living on extremely
small holdings with a mixed economy,” UNICEF’s Ethiopia Representative
Bjorn Ljungqvist explains. “They’ll be growing a bit of coffee, keeping a
cow or a few goats and growing some root crops or a bit of maize.
“Because of the drought, the farmers have lost the root crops and the
maize,” he continues. “They can normally buy some of their food with
the money they earn from selling coffee but now that food is twice as
expensive or not available. In that situation, with children being the
most vulnerable and already partly malnourished, they very quickly get
into a situation of severe acute malnutrition.”
“Normally we have maybe four or five children at each therapeutic
feeding centre,” Bjorn adds. “But all of a sudden it was two or three
hundred children coming in and the people on the ground were calling out
for more supplies.”
Good track record
UNICEF UK uses content sharing sites such as You
Tube to help get messages out to potential donors
© UNICEF UK/You
Tube
It is at times like this that people turn to
UNICEF. The organisation has been providing emergency assistance to
children since the end of the Second World War and has a presence in
over 150 developing countries, with the international infrastructure to
get aid rapidly to those in need.
“We’ve got a greater presence on the ground in more countries than
almost any other organisation,” UNICEF UK Executive Director David Bull
comments. “Wherever a crisis breaks, UNICEF is already there, knows the
country well, has expert staff on the ground who are ready to act
quickly, and will be there for the long term.”
The organisation also has a unique supply capability, with an
international supplies division operating out of Copenhagen and regional
hubs in other parts of the world. “We can mobilise vaccines, mosquito
nets, health kits, education kits and so on very quickly,” David
continues. “In most countries, if there’s any threat of a natural
disaster, there will be supplies kept at the national level which can be
distributed on day one of an emergency.”
Rapid response
In the case of Ethiopia, this meant that the local UNICEF office was
able to respond rapidly to the initial crisis. UNICEF-supported feeding
units across the region, staffed by community health workers, were able
to provide therapeutic milk, ready to use nutritional food and
medication for children with severe malnutrition. However, there are
insufficient supplies in the country to last the four or five months
until the next harvest.
For this reason, UNICEF Ethiopia has issued an appeal for an extra
£10 million for emergency food, plus £15 million for measles
vaccination, control of diarrhoeal diseases, water transportation and
sanitation. “Because of the long-term challenges in the South of
Ethiopia, we have exhausted our spare stocks,” Bjorn explains. “We need
additional supplies to help these children overcome the drought.”
When an international appeal is issued, UNICEF UK springs into
action. Letters and emails are sent out to supporters, adverts are
placed in newspapers and an online donation system is set up. For recent
appeals, new methods have been tried, such as attracting donors via
appeals on You Tube and mobilising fundraisers through social networking
sites such as Facebook.
“In emergencies, the majority of the funding often comes from
personal donations, and UNICEF UK is a significant part of that,” David
comments. “Our supporters are very generous and they respond quickly and
effectively when we ask them. We’re very grateful for that. ”
A number of UK companies also help out in crisis situations.
“British Airways sometimes provide contributions or offer free cargo
space to help us get supplies to the countries where they’re needed,”
David says. “We also have a relationship with Orange, who send text
messages to their subscribers during major emergencies, asking them to
make a contribution.”
UNICEF UK also uses celebrity supporters to drum up support. Martin
Bell, the former BBC correspondent and MP, is often brought in to film
special reports. “Martin is an exceptional reporter, able to explain a
complicated situation very clearly and succinctly,” David says. “You can
point a camera at him and ask for 30 seconds on the situation in a
given country and he’ll deliver it in one take, exactly to time.”
In the case of Ethiopia, actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman,
who visited a UNICEF project in the country during their Long Way Down
TV series, both offered to record appeal films. “I’ve been privileged to
see UNICEF’s work first-hand in Ethiopia and remember the people and
children with great fondness,” Ewan comments. “When I heard about the
children who are now suffering, I felt I had to do something.”
Hope for the future
In 2007, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman
visited UNICEF mine awareness projects in Ethiopia and met children who
had lost limbs in accidents
© UNICEF UK/Ethiopia/Sarah Epstein
The situation in Ethiopia is far from
hopeless. Since 2004, UNICEF has been working with the Ethiopian
government to build up the country’s capacity and infrastructure. If
farmers like Ibro Bekeri Yusef can get through the current crisis, they
will be in a much stronger position to recover than after previous
droughts.
“This is a country that is trying extremely hard to develop,” Bjorn
comments. “They’ve achieved economic growth from virtually nothing.
They’re building up a health system and the capacity to deal with
malnutrition and starvation. They’re building a school system. They just
need our help for the next few months to be able to continue.”
The rains that farmers need to grow crops for the next harvest have
already started. “There are now grey skies and showers virtually every
day,” Bjorn says. “Once you have rain, you can start growing
vegetables, the cows and goats will produce more milk, and so on. That’s
why we’re hoping for a normalisation of the situation by the autumn.”
UNICEF UK has already raised over £50,000 pounds for Ethiopia through
donations from supporters, saving many children’s lives. In previous
emergencies, the UK has raised millions of pounds, providing vital
resources for the organisation to continue helping children threatened
by conflicts or natural disasters around the world. For children like
Khesna, the generosity of the UK public really can make the difference
between life and death.
Andy Brown is Senior Web Editor at UNICEF UK