Ethiopia: progress but malnutrition levels still high
Tuesday, 4 July 2006
Concern has deployed a team to the Afar area which began emergency nutrition intervention in two districts, Yalo and Teru. Similarly, in the West Imy Somali region, in partnership with a local NGO, the Mother and Child Development Organization, MCDO, Concern has finalised plans to activate a feeding scheme there. It includes a two month blanket food distribution and feeding project, while a four month feeding plan will target children under 5, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly.
In the western half of the region, farmers are well advanced with land preparation for main rainy season crops and planting of long cycle crops such as maize and sorghum. Afar region in the north, is already in its dry season and there has been no rainfall since the beginning of May. The recent short rainy season have been better than the past few years. Consequently, milk production from goats and camels is showing improvement but that of cattle remains very poor.
At the end of this month, a Concern team will visit areas to assess the impact of the rainfall.
