Livestock emergency interventions in drought affected woredas of Afar National Regional State, Ethiopia

The project was designed to protect the lives of 6 000 heads of cattle breeding stock in Erpeti, Ewa and Ara woredas through the provision of survival feed, to increase the income of beneficiary households by facilitating commercial destocking of 2 500 heads of livestock, and to improve household nutrition and income by supporting the slaughter destocking of 2 650 heads of cattle and sheep. 

Outcome of the survival feeding :

• Livestock asset protection and resumption of production/reproduction activities. The adaptation of animals to multinutrient blocks was not instantaneous but it was encouraging. Small ruminants, particularly goats, have adapted to the multinutrient blocks faster than cattle. However, if not monitored, goats tend to consume much more than the recommended daily allowance of 0.10 kg/head/day.
• Enhanced drought preparedness: The multinutrient blocks used in this survival feeding were produced by three multinutrient blocks producer cooperatives in Awash, Chifra and Assayita. The members of these cooperatives are pastoralists and ex-pastoralists. The project supported these multinutrient blocks producer cooperatives through the provision of practical training, basic tools and ingredients used in the production of multinutrient blocks. The establishment of multinutrient blocks producer cooperatives contributed significantly to community drought preparedness. In a field day organized through the project, the production and use of multinutrient blocks was introduced to stakeholders, including federal and regional government officials, livestock experts and DAs, non-governmental organizations, pastoralists, and beneficiary communities. Demonstrating multinutrient blocks to such a broad audience helped to ensure the use of this low-cost resource for both survival and production diets.
• Enhancement of beneficiaries’ technical skills. In addition to the provision of livestock survival feed, the project offered in-depth practical training to 34 pastoral households and 41 DAs.

Challenges and lessons learned.

A livestock disease outbreak occurred during the project implementation, which seriously affected the activities of the intervention. In response, FAO requested OCHA to reallocate the budget initially planned for slaughter destocking in order to provide funds for vaccinations to contain the disease outbreak. When OCHA declined , FAO negotiated with another donor to provide the financing required to contain the outbreak. This experience demonstrates the importance of having flexible or discretionary funds to apply to unforeseen problems during the project implementation.