Emergency support to drought-affected pastoral and agropastoral communities in Borena zone, Oromiya region, Ethiopia

The design of the project leveraged on FAO,  International Organization for Migration (IOM), and UNDP’s strategy for Ethiopia in response to the impact of drought and taking into account the latest Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners’ Humanitarian Requirements Document issued in July 201.

The project addresses life saving through livelihood protection in the area livestock and water interventions that contribute to immediate needs and recovery of pastoralists and agropastoralists from the current crisis.

The planned activities are in the area of water facilities rehabilitation, emergency agriculture services (specifically livestock restocking and veterinary interventions with emphasis on the six hotspot woredas of Borena zone, Oromiya region). Emergency rehabilitation of water points and increasing water availability and efficiency of water utilization management, and emergency animal health through vaccination and treatment are activities conducted by the Disaster Risk Management and Rehabilitation Unit of FAO during times of crisis.

FAO's activities:

• Livestock water point rehabilitation.
  The water point rehabilitation looked at increased availability of water for livestock and reduced tracking distance of animals in Teltele and Arero woredas of Borena Zone, Oromiya region. FAO surveyed and rehabilitate nine water
  points (three ponds, four elas and two hand dug wells), as well as, the catchment areas for three ponds, and trained and provided water point rehabilitation materials and tools for the community. The rehabilitation of water points looked at the improvement of facility productivity, enhancement of holding capacity, provision of cattle troughs, and the protection of the said water facilities. Water use efficiency in most of the traditional elas and hand dug wells were very low. Over 40 percent of water fetched from the water points was lost as a result of poor quality of collection chambers, conveyance and cattle troughs made up of mud. Such losses could be minimized by simple water tight collection chambers, conveyance system and cattle troughs. For this purpose, rehabilitation materials such as cement, reinforcement bars and tool are essentials.
• Community and development agents trainings.
  Simple and practical training was provided for both the community and development actors to improve the
  efficiency of the community, development agents working with the community, water technicians at woreda and
  zonal levels in efficient utilization of water and water points.
• Animal health interventions.
  The animal health intervention is vital for the protection of livestock from diseases and reduce mortality rate. This was implemented through a community-based animal health delivery system which involved the establishment of private pharmacies linked to community animal health workers. The intervention was further facilitated through a vouchers based animal health care approach addressing most vulnerable households. In the last three years FAO in collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture vaccinated close to 15 million sheep and goats against peste des petits
  ruminants (PPR), and this has drastically reduced the mortality of goats from PPR. In these years the outbreak had gone down to a level that even in the current drought there were no reports of PPR outbreaks. Therefore, increasing the PPR vaccination coverage during the forthcoming rainy seasons protected the small ruminants and speed up the early recovery from the drought.