New Decade for Water
Water Scarcity acute malnutrition. Livelihood Crisis
More than 80 per cent of people in Ethiopia rely on agriculture and livestock as their primary source of food and income, however, the frequency of droughts over the years has left many communities particularly vulnerable. Significant production losses, by up to 50-90 percent
Drought is pushing up food prices in Uganda. Photo: FAO
in some areas, have severely diminished households’ food security and purchasing power, forcing many to sell their remaining agricultural assets and abandon their livelihoods.
Estimates in early 2016 by Ethiopia’ s Bureau of Agriculture indicate that some 7.5 million farmers and herders need immediate agricultural support to produce staple crops like maize, sorghum, teff, wheat, and root crops, and livestock feed to keep their animals healthy and resume production.
Hundreds of thousands of livestock have already died and the animals that remain are becoming weaker and thinner due to poor grazing resources, feed shortages and limited water availability, leading to sharp declines in milk and meat production.
The FAO Ethiopia El Niño Response Plan aims to assist 1.8 million vulnerable pastoralists, agro pastoralists and smallholder farmers in 2016.
To achieve this, the UN food and agriculture will prioritize agricultural production support in order to reduce the food gap, livestock interventions to protect the livelihood assets of pastoralists and agro pastoralists, and activities to enhance the resilience of affected communities through coordinated response.
As part of the emergency response, FAO has been providing planting materials to help seed- and foodinsecure households in the worst affected regions plant in the belg and meher seasons.
In an effort to preserve livestock, it has been distributing multi-nutrient blocks in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas to strengthen livestock and bolster the resilience of the cooperatives that produce them.
Survival animal feed is also being provided to help farmers produce fodder and improve access to water for livestock. Herds across the country have also benefited from vaccination and treatment campaigns to address their increasing vulnerability as a result of drought.
In Ethiopia’ s Somali Region, FAO is enhancing the financial stability of drought-affected households through the purchase of weak sheep and goats for immediate, local slaughter – and providing the meat – rich in protein – to nutritionally vulnerable drought-affected families.
The intervention will help reduce stress on available feed, enable households to focus their resources on their
New Decade for Water
In December 2016, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution“ International Decade( 2018 – 2028) for Action – Water for Sustainable Development” to help put a greater focus on water during ten years. Emphasizing that water is critical for sustainable development and the eradication of poverty and hunger, UN Member States expressed deep concern over the lack of access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene and over water related disasters, scarcity and pollution being excarcebated by urbanization, population growth, desertification, drought and climate change.
The new Decade will focus on on the sustainable development and integrated management of water resources for the achievement of social, economic and environmental objectives and on the implementation and promotion of related programmes and projects, as well as on the furtherance of cooperation and partnership at all levels in order to help to achieve internationally agreed water-related goals and targets, including those contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In the resolution, UN Member States invited the Secretary-General, with the support of UN-Water, to take appropriate steps, within existing resources, to plan and organize the activities of the Decade at the global, regional and country levels. To set the agenda in motion, UN- Water, in its 26th meeting in Geneva in February 2017, decided on the establishment of a Task Force to facilitate its support to the planning and organisation.
The Decade will commence on World Water Day 22 March 2018, and terminate on World Water Day, 22 March 2028.
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