Emergency livestock response to save lives and livelihoods of drought affected pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in three zones (Dollo, Korahey, and Shabelle) of Somali region of Ethiopia in response to persistent drought

FAO supported emergency livestock interventions composed of supplementary feeds, animal health and destocking in ten drought affected woredas of Somali region during the first half of 2017. The supplementary feeds provision aimed at protecting core breeding herd of targeted households. However, with the failure of the spring, Gu rains which effectively extended the drought duration in Somali region by about 5 months, the need to continue to provide emergency livestock interventions including supplementary feed to the core breeding animals becomes inevitable. Therefore, the proposed intervention builds on achievements of previous project by targeting the same core breeding livestock which were saved during the critical period of the drought in the first half of the year. The purpose is to ensure that the investment already made in these core breeding herd are protected until the next rainy season expected in October/November.

The interventions of this project were intended to provide emergency assistance to drought affected households to recover from the impacts of the drought. It had 2 components:  animal feed and animal health.

The interventions of this project were intended to provide emergency assistance to drought affected households to recover from the impacts of the drought.

Livestock mortality mitigated and crop production enhanced among 29 827 of the most affected pastoral and agropastoral households in the project woredas and zones of the Somali region of Ethiopia. The livestock feed and animal health services will cover 24 906 households in woredas, Danot in Dollo zone, Doboweyn in Korahe zone and Gode in Shebelle zone. The forage seed supply will cover 106 households in five woredas of Shebelle zone, one woreda of Afder zone and one woreda of Korahe zone. The food crop seed supply will cover 4 052 households, in four zones and 14 woredas of the Somali region of Ethiopia.

Challenges:

The main challenges faced by the project were a delay in the delivery of inputs and the timing of the delivery, which was done towards the end of the dry season in March. Even though the feed substantially helped animals to recover from the impact of the drought, earlier delivery would have been beneficial to farmers already suffering from the drought conditions.