Ethiopia slow onset natural disaster: El Niño-driven emergency

In this report, the Ethiopia Humanitarian Country Team analyzes a wide range of data recommended by Ethiopia’s National Meteorological Agency’s analogue years of El Niño episodes of 1997 and 2002 to learn the lessons of the past and to inform future needs and implementation strategies. The major conclusion of this analysis is one of warning: without a robust response supported by the international community, there is a high probability of a significant food insecurity and nutrition disaster.

The two El Niño events studied saw dramatic increases in food insecurity and malnutrition, and decreases to GDP from one year to the next due to lost harvests. There are concerns that the hunger season for a much larger number of Ethiopians could be extended to eight months from as early as February through the October harvest. Whilst the full scope of humanitarian need in 2016 cannot be definitively predicted, without rainfall it is clear that life-saving needs will climb dramatically.