Ethiopia is a
developing country faced with many socio-economic problems, such as limited
access to water supplies, food and education. Lack of access to irrigation and the
dependence of Ethiopian agriculture on rainfall have made food security in
Ethiopia vulnerable to the variability of the weather. This is despite
its potential to irrigate 3.5 million hectares of land. The infrastructure for
irrigated agriculture, such as reservoirs, irrigation canals, and the
technology, is not available. Such a state of dependency on rainfall for food
production has made Ethiopia vulnerable to drought. Moreover, high population
growth, environmental degradation, unwise government policies, and lack of
peace and stability have increased Ethiopia’s vulnerability to disaster.
There have been
many climate-related disasters, such as drought, that have often led to famine
in Ethiopia. The experience has led to the evolution of an excellent early
warning and response mechanism in Ethiopia. The National Meteorological
Services Agency (NMSA) provides weather forecasts and the DPPC provides the
famine early warning system and assesses the food supply in the country. The
DPPC is the secretary of National Disaster Prevention and Preparedness
Committee in the Office of the Prime Minister. As an agency that monitors
Ethiopian weather, the NMSA is a member of the NDPPC. The coordinated warnings
and responses of the NDPPC have helped the country in the prevention of famine
disasters in the 1990s. The development of these institutions is also matched
by the evolution of various policies, such as the National Policy for
Disaster Prevention and Management, the General Guidelines for the
Implementation of the National Policies on Disaster Prevention and Management
and the National Food Security Policy. These policies were instrumental
in setting the some of cornerstones for strengthening disaster preparedness in
Ethiopia.
Drought early
warning based on El Niño information has been practiced by the Ethiopian
National Meteorological Services Agency since 1987. The NMSA received
information about the development of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean in March
1997. It issued a forecast for Ethiopia on May 29, 1997 after being convinced
that it was the strongest El Niño. It can be concluded that this was a late
forecast because of its coincidence with the planting of the Kiremt
crops. The forecast did not benefit the long maturing crops that are planted at
the end of April and May. The Ethiopian early warning system transmitted the
information to the Regional, Zone and Wereda levels early disaster
prevention and preparedness committees with various recommendations.
The NMSA used
the analogue method to assess the characteristics of the 1997 El Niño. It
reached the conclusion that the 1997-98 El Niño was analogous to that of 1972
in the amount and distribution of rainfall. The drought of 1973-74 had killed
200,000 people in the northern part of Ethiopia. The characteristic of
the 1997-98 rainfall was variable rainfall during the Kiremt season and
anomalous excessive rainfall during the bega or harvest season. It
destroyed the crops during the growing, flowering and harvesting season. Total
production was 25 percent lower than the previous year.
There was a lot
of mobilization in terms of replanting of short maturing crops and water
harvesting. The DPPC mobilized local and foreign resources for the
emergency. Donors were initially reluctant to respond to the DPPC appeal
until the beginning of 1998. One of the reasons for the reluctance of donors
was probably the existence of record harvest in the previous year and the
success of the Emergency Food Security Reserves. The widespread news in 1996-97
that Ethiopia had begun exporting food must have hurt the demand for food aid
when crops failed in 1997-98.
One of the
problems in the use of the El Niño forecast in Ethiopia was the lack of
awareness on the part of the general population about the phenomenon. For
example, the role of the media in the dissemination of the El Niño information
was not effective during the evolution of the El Niño in 1997-98. There was
very little media coverage and analysis about El Niño other than printing news
items coming from the various news wires and reports from the Ethiopian
government. El Niño coverage began at the end of the season when the impact was
being felt and because of heavy government involvement. In the 1997-98 El Niño
we can conclude that the Ethiopian media was a follower rather than a leader or
educator of the government or the public. The probable reason was lack of
understanding of the event by the reporters. In 1997-98 some policy makers were
stating that the mass media should be used to educate the farmers. However,
many farmers do not have access to newspapers and radios. The radio is an
effective medium to transmit information to farmers due to illiteracy, but most
of them do not have a radio because of the cost.
Some of the
recommendations given by the Ministry of Agriculture, such as the use of
existing dams and the construction of canals appear to be good, but they should
have been done before the onset of any disaster. In countries such as Ethiopia
where farmers depend on unreliable rainfall for food production dams and canals
should be constructed as part of the infrastructural development to improve
productivity during normal rainfall seasons.
One of the
major problems that hinders long term and effective weather forecasting in
Ethiopia is the absence of meteorological information in various parts of the
country that are accumulated for a long period of time. At present, there are
only 600 meteorological stations in Ethiopia. Most of those stations are
located in the urban areas. If the researchers were expected to provide accurate
El Niño-based forecasts for the diverse climate zones of Ethiopia, they would
require meteorological information, such as rainfall, temperature, air pressure
etc. for those localities. One of the forecast and response constraints in
Ethiopia was lack of trained manpower to interpret the information, especially,
in the regional states. Those who work in the regions do not have access to
resources, such as transportation, communication, the Internet, computers and
office equipment. In general there is a need for the training of
meteorologists, especially for the regions.
The various
ecological zones of Ethiopia have given rise to the existence of rich species
of cereals that require different growing periods based on location. Maize and
sorghum are planted at the end of April or in May. There are many varieties of teff,
which are sown in May, June or July. The same variety of crop might be sown at
different dates because of the local climate. Such specific and local seeds and
specific ecological zones would require both local knowledge and specific
forecasts, which are not available for Ethiopia at this time. Providing weather
forecasts to specific local areas might bring a lack of credibility to those
involved in providing such information.
At the national
level, Ethiopia has to raise the number of researchers in the field of
meteorology in general and climate forecast in particular. At present there is
no single department of meteorology in any of Ethiopia’s five universities.
Mechanisms also have to be constructed so that those social and physical
scientists outside the DPPC and the NMSA could develop an interest to conduct
research on the relationship between El Niño and climate-related impacts in
Ethiopia.
The El Niño of
1997-98 showed us the fragility of food security in developing countries, even
with a government that is focused on agricultural development. Ethiopia had
excellent food production in 1995-96 and 1996-97, but the optimism was dashed
with the onset of the first drought. In spite of the existence of a supportive
political environment for those involved in disaster prevention in Ethiopia,
the struggle was very difficult. At the end of 1997, the Emergency Food
Security Reserve was depleted and there was nervousness in the country that famine
might revisit the people. Only an intervention by the reluctant donors in early
1998 prevented a killer famine. One of the lessons we learn from this
experience is that even though food security reserves are an excellent way of
responding to disasters, if they depend on the donors’ generosity for refills,
they can not be relied upon. Donors can ignore pleas for food to fill the
stocks as happened in the case of Ethiopia in 1999 and 2000. It should be noted
that there had been a La Niña-inspired drought in the nomadic areas of Ethiopia
because of the failure of the belg rains for three seasons since 1998.
The DPPC had been appealing for relief for these regions for the last three
years. However, donors had been reluctant until the last minute. Donors who
borrowed grains based on pledges from the stocks failed to return the food
until it was becoming too late. Some suspect that one of the reasons for the
delay of food aid in 1999 and 2000 was to pressure the Ethiopian government for
a peaceful resolution of its conflict with Eritrea. Eritrea had occupied some
districts by force in 1998 until it was driven out by force in May 2000.
Long lasting
preparedness for climate-related impacts is likely to improve the capacity of
the society in food production. The international community should support
Ethiopia’s efforts to target agricultural development in drought affected areas
(Xinhua 7/3/2000). The policies of soil and water conservation should be
geared to the objective of raising food output by reducing the impact of
drought. When you ask farmers what they want to have above everything, it would
be access to water. Access to water could enable farmers to have multiple crops
in a year. Ethiopia is very rich in water resources. However, farmers’
access to irrigation is very limited.
The situation
of the 1997-978 case teaches us that El Niño based forecasts are very important
for Ethiopia. With credible El Niño information with a longer lead time, the
national government can use it to manage the national food supply. It can
advise farmers to produce more food instead of cash crops; it can discourage
exports and import ahead of time. It can also advise farmers what and when to
plant and help reduce losses of resources on seeds during the process of
replanting when the rain returns.
We should learn
that one of the reasons for the containment of the 1997-98 disaster was because
of a positive economic condition in the country, open-mindedness on the part of
the government and donor support. We should note that an El Niño-based forecast
is important but it also needs a national preparedness for the impending
disaster through socioeconomic development in all sectors of the economy,
particularly in food production.