HORN OF AFRICA, STATE - USAID HUMANITARIAN

UNCLAS NAIROBI 003441

SIPDIS

AIDAC

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/E, AF/EPS, AF/PD, EB, PRM/AF, IO
AID FOR AA/DCHA, MHESS, WGARVELINK, LROGERS, MHESS,
DCHA/OTI
DCHA/OFDA FOR GGOTTLIEB, PMORRIS, CGOTTSCHALK,
KCHANNELL
DCHA/FFP FOR DHAMMINK, JDWORKEN, JDRUMMOND, TANDERSON,
DNELSON
DCHA/PPM FOR SBRADLEY
AID/EGAT FOR AA/EGAT, JSCHAFER, JTURK
AFR/EA FOR JBORNS, SMCCLURE
ADDIS ABABA FOR SHELLY CHEATHAM
DJIBOUTI FOR JSCHULMAN
ROME FOR FODAG RICH NEWBERG
GENEVA FOR NKYLOH
BRUSSELS FOR PLERNER
NSC FOR JMELINE, TSHORTLEY

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID ECON PHUM PREF PREL IGAD CENTCOM KE
SO, DY, ET

SUBJECT: HORN OF AFRICA, STATE - USAID HUMANITARIAN
CABLE UPDATE NUMBER 8

REF: A) STATE 27057; B) NAIROBI 02414

This is the last update cable in response to Ref A
request for bi-weekly reports on the humanitarian
situation in the Horn of Africa. USAID Missions in
Kenya and Ethiopia, USAID/East Africa (Somalia,
Djibouti),and OFDA/ECARO contributed to this report.

In the future, USAID/EA plans to issue quarterly
reports on Famine Prevention Fund activities and
periodic reports on the regional eastern and central
Africa (ECA) food security situation, which will
include the Horn of Africa.

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REGIONAL SUMMARY
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1.FEWSNET continues to classify the Horn of Africa
pastoralist zones as an emergency, despite the improved
performance of the long rains compared to the 2005
failed seasons. Although key pastoral environmental
indicators such as the availability of water, pasture
and browse have improved in the short term, livelihood
recovery will take years. In Kenya, livestock and
livelihood recovery due to the 3 - 6 failed seasons
will be slow. Food insecurity in Northwest Kenya is
currently particularly acute. In Ethiopia, the southern
zones of the Somali region remain the most food
insecure of the country and facing continued crisis due
to spotty rains and conflict. In southern Somalia,
civil insecurity and conflict remains the biggest
uncertainty. Crops did not perform well in Gedo, Juba
valley and Bakol regions, and malnutrition rates remain
high at 20 percent. In Djibouti, the dry lean season
and scorching summer heat has dried out meager pasture
lands. Deep wells and water trucking are the only
sources of water in most parts of pastoral livelihood
zones.

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COUNTRY REPORTS
--------------


2. KENYA

UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE:
A multi-agency long rains assessment is underway and
will be completed on August 12, 2006. The assessment
covers 27 Arid and Semi Arid Lands districts. The
final assessment report is expected to be available
around the end of August.

On food aid, a cereals pipeline break is expected in
September. The latest unconfirmed pledge towards the
WFP-led EMOP is 7,400 MT of Rice from the Japanese
Government. The USG is working towards another
contribution of 14,000 MT in assorted commodities

including cereals valued at approximately $9.9 million
to reduce the pipeline gap bound to occur beyond
September.

UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK:
The 2006 long rains have ended in most areas of the
country. In the high potential cropping areas of the
Rift Valley and Western Provinces rainfall is expected
to continue through August and into early September. In
spite of the good rains, household food security
remains precarious in the drought-affected pastoral,
arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya. In addition, milk
availability is limited since livestock herds have only
just begun to recover from high mortality and the
extremely poor conditions during the dry season that
have resulted in a very low proportion of animals
lactating. As a result, malnutrition rates in many of
these areas have shown little improvement. FEWSNET
reports that substantial losses of livestock between
November and March have severely eroded the productive
asset base of pastoralists. Due to the extent of
livestock losses, most drought-affected households are
forced to rely on relief food aid. Recovery for
drought affected households will require substantial
rebuilding of herds, a process likely to take several
good seasons, which have become increasingly rare.


3. ETHIOPIA

UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE:
USAID/OFDA continues to respond to humanitarian needs
resulting from the regional drought. In July,
USAID/OFDA teams traveled to Oromiya and Southern
Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP) regions to
assess humanitarian conditions and monitor ongoing
USAID/OFDA-funded programs. The recent rainy season
was beneficial for water, pasture, and browse,
resulting in improved conditions for agriculture and
livestock. However, as the upcoming dry season
approaches conditions are likely to deteriorate.

On July 24, the USAID/OFDA Regional Advisor (RA) for
the Horn of Africa arrived in Addis Ababa for a ten day
visit. The RA met with partners to discuss the
progress, including successes and challenges, of
community-based therapeutic care (CTC) programs in the
country.

According to Oromiya Region health officials, more than
5,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea were identified in
health facilities in West Arsi Zone, Oromiya Region
since late June. Health clinics have reported at least
33 related deaths; however, an unknown number of people
may have died without seeking treatment. Ministry of
Health, U.N. agencies, and NGOs have mobilized teams to
respond to the outbreak. USAID/OFDA partner Population
Services International (PSI) is providing point-of-
contact water treatment products and training to

woreda-level health officials.
The recent acute watery diarrhea outbreak in West Arsi
Zone, Oromiya Region is reportedly resulting in
increased needs for food assistance for affected
populations. Food security in the region is worrisome
due to poor rain performance in some lowland areas of
East and West Harerge zones. Following the
deterioration of the food security situation, the
region has requested food allocations from the DPPA.

As of August 7, USAID/OFDA has programmed nearly USD 14
million, primarily through grants to eleven partner
non-governmental organizations (NGOs),U.N. Children's
Fund, and U.N. World Food Program.

As for food aid, WFP has yet to receive beneficiary
numbers from the DPPA for the second half of 2006. As
a result, WFP remains unable to concretely report on
the pipeline outlook. In the best case scenario with
1.5 million people needing emergency food assistance,
the cereal pipeline will break in December and require
an additional 10,000 metric tons (MT). In the worst
case scenario with 3.0 million beneficiaries, the
cereal pipeline will break in September and the total
shortfall would be 177,000 MT. WFP will revise these
estimates once the DPPA releases the final beneficiary
numbers.

Pastoralist Livelihood Initiative Update: Most drought
response programs have wound down in the PLI as a
result of rains through much of the drought affected
areas. Pastoralists have discontinued emergency sale
of livestock, although healthy livestock markets
reinforced by market linkages through PLI have resulted
in continued high prices and good levels of sales for
livestock headed northwards to the Awash/Addis markets.
Maintenance of breeding herds and emergency health
interventions have also wound down for the moment, but
because of insufficient rains in many of the affected
areas, particularly in Eastern Somali Region, these may
have to re-start before long. Conflict and heavy
security presence have limited the activities of PLI
partners in the southern parts of Somali region,
especially the more drought affected areas of Gode,
Deghabur, and Korahe Zones in Somali Region.
Although reasonably good rains in most drought-affected
areas in southern Ethiopia were received in April,
subsequent rains have been spotty and there remain many
areas that did not receive sufficient rain to see them
through to the next rainy season. Essential nutrition,
water and other responses are underway, including an
assessment of a recent outbreak of acute watery
diarrhea. In addition, other pastoralist and
agricultural areas not affected by the earlier drought
are now facing drought conditions, mainly in pockets in
Afar and northern Somali regions, as well as parts of
East Harerge Zone in Oromiya Region and Amhara Region.

UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK:
On July 20, the Government of Ethiopia's Disaster
Prevention and Preparedness Agency (DPPA) sponsored a
debriefing session for the mid-year multi-agency
emergency assessment. Joint teams assessed conditions
in six regions during a three-week period from mid-June
to early July. According to the assessment teams, the
overall prospect of the belg rains and crop production
is rated as promising, except in some pocket areas in
parts of Amhara and eastern Oromiya regions. The DPPA
is currently reviewing the assessment results and the
associated recommendations for beneficiary numbers. As
a result, official updates on revised beneficiary
numbers for the period of August to December are yet to
be released from the federal government.

Conflict worsened conditions and made the response more
difficult. A serious conflict between the Borena and
the Guji in Oromiya Region resulted in a large number
of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and temporarily
disrupted access to a number of areas. Heavy security
presence in Somali Region as well as pockets of
fighting has disrupted emergency activities and food
aid was only seven percent of the planned totals for
June.


4. SOMALIA
UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE:
WFP is beginning a new two year Protracted Relief and
Recovery Operation (PRRO) on August 1, 2006. The
operation is expected to assist 2.1 million
beneficiaries with 170,686 MTs of food commodities
costing US $124 million. The food will be targeted
towards relief distributions (125,000 MTs); Food for
Work/Food for Training (28,000 MTs); Mother-Child
Health (11,000 MTs); Social Support to orphans,
elderly, and chronically ill (3,000 MTs); and school
feeding (3,000 MTs). WFP has already received 10
percent of the total amount ($13.2 million) from over
ten donors with the largest contributors being the
Netherlands and Saudi Arabia. USAID is in the process
of making its first contribution to this new operation.
WFP?s pipeline is full through the end of 2006 for
pulses, oils, and fortified corn-soya blend (CSB) but
faces shortages in cereals beginning in October. The
pipeline gap in cereals for 2006 is 37,206 and should
be mostly resourced with USAID/Food for Peace?s pending
contribution.

Early indications from USAID partners indicate that the
impact of the Union of Islamic Courts takeover has been
a decrease in roadblocks reducing the cost and time for
humanitarian shipments as well as a reduction in sea
piracy.
To date, USAID/OFDA has programmed nearly 6 million USD
in humanitarian assistance, focusing on water,
sanitation, health, nutrition and livelihood sectors in
the high risk regions of Gedo, Bay, Bakool, Lower and

Middle Juba.
UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK:
FEWSNET and the FSAU estimate that over 2 million
people continue to face either a livelihood crisis or a
humanitarian emergency. The overall performance of the
2006 March-May gu (main) season in terms of crop
production and rangeland condition was below normal.
However, preliminary reports indicate a harvest at 71%
of post-war average yields, and the number of drought-
affected people anticipated to need humanitarian
assistance should drop from 1.7 million to 1.3 million.
The livestock sector is confronted with poor lactating
and calving rates, increasing the overall poor
nutrition, and cereal market prices are a their
highest levels in over six years.

5. DJIBOUTI

UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE:
According to FEWSNET reports pastoralists in all rural
livelihood zones entered a lean period from June-August
during which their food security situation is
precarious, and WFP led EMOP is assisting them in
filling the food gaps. WFP is distributing 800 MT per
month for 5 drought affected districts in rural
Djibouti and targets 47,500 beneficiaries for general
distribution and supplementary feeding. The program
was to end on 15 September but WFP submitted a budget
revision and will now end in December 2006. The budget
revision included an additional one month buffer stock
of 20,000 rations to cope with the current increase in
population movements. For the PRRO (for Somali
refugees),WFP has just closed Holl Holl camp, leaving
one camp - Ali Ade - for 10,000 remaining refugees
(down from 17,260 refugees in March 2005, who have been
repatriated to northern Somalia). WFP plans to
repatriate 6,000 more leaving 4,000 refugees by
December 2006. The USG is a major contributor to WFP?s
PRRO and EMOP at 3,210MT valued at $2 million. The
other donors to WFP are Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and
Canada.

OFDA has provided $200,000 to UNICEF Djibouti to
implement a therapeutic feeding program in Djibouti
city. This includes training of local health workers,
community mobilization, provision of therapeutic food
and working with the Ministry of Health to develop
nutrition guidelines and policies related to
supplemental and therapeutic feeding programs.

UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK:
June-August are the hottest months in Djibouti and
natural resources (water, pasture and browse) become
scarce in all pastoral zones as a result of the start
of the dry season. Deep wells and water trucking are
the sole sources of water in most parts of pastoral
livelihood zones. Browsing animals (goats and camels)
are better equipped to survive these conditions than
grazing animals (cattle and sheep),which depend on


increasingly depleted pasture. In the southeast
pastoral livelihood zones, the number of lactating
goats is expected to be limited in the coming milking
period (August to October),leading to reduced milk
production. Minimum food or income can be derived from
herds under these conditions, and the risk of food
deficits in pastoral areas is further heightened by the
reduction of remittances in response to the higher cost
of staple food prices in urban areas.

Many people migrate out of the city to escape the heat
in the dry hot months of June-August, and urban
migrations have an effect on petty trade, an activity
practiced by poor households thus reducing their
purchasing power, and further reduces the remittances
to the pastoral areas due to the high cost of staple
food prices in urban areas. The decline in the income
of the urban poor contributes to low dietary intake and
consequently higher malnutrition rates. UNICEF in
collaboration with the Ministry of Health have recently
opened 10 supplementary feeding centers inside Djibouti
City and the program is planned to be extended further
to other districts within the territory of Djibouti.

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REGIONAL RAINFALL FORECAST
--------------


6. According to IGAD Climate Prediction and
Applications Center (ICPAC),the 2005 - 2006 drought in
the Horn of Africa saw some of the driest conditions
recorded since 1961. Then, in early March 2006, the
normal rainy season was preceded again by abnormal
weather -- this time, unusual wet conditions in
western Kenya due to a tropical cyclone over the
southwest Indian Ocean, followed by a three-week dry
period. The rainy season that followed during late
March to May was poorly distributed and not sufficient
to begin a recovery period from the drought
particularly in the most severe drought areas of
northeast Kenya, southeast Ethiopia, and Southern
Somalia. The ICPAC consensus outlook for June -
September 2006 forecasts average rainfall across the
region -- although ?average? needs to be caveated since
these months are not the rainy season in the pastoral
zone. Although isolated showers have improved
pasturelands and crops that were planted late, overall
below normal vegetation conditions are seen in many of
the pastoral areas. The October ? December rains,
which are normally lighter than the spring rains, will
be critical if an even more severe emergency crisis is
to be avoided in the first half of 2007.

HOOVER