The United States has announced the restart of food aid to refugees in Ethiopia, a crucial move aimed at mitigating deepening food crisis.
The decision came after a brief suspension of aid earlier this year over worries that food supplies might not reach their intended recipients.
Ethiopia has been grappling with a worsening food crisis, exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in the Tigray region and the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades. A senior official at USAID emphasized that “the resumption of food assistance to refugees will save lives and alleviate suffering for some of the most vulnerable.”
This decision to restart aid comes on the heels of strengthened reforms implemented by the Ethiopian government and its partners to enhance the refugee food assistance structure. These reforms include bolstered program monitoring, reinforced commodity tracking, and improved registration processes, as outlined by the USAID official.
The reinstatement of food aid is expected to have a positive impact on dozens of refugee sites across Ethiopia. However, it’s worth noting that none of these sites are located in Tigray, where a two-year conflict between the federal government and forces led by the region’s dominant political party concluded in a truce in November of the previous year.
This conflict resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of lives and created famine-like conditions for hundreds of thousands of people.
According to a second USAID official, this decision will affect approximately 1 million refugees in Ethiopia, encompassing populations from Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and other regions.
Notably, assistance for other food-insecure individuals in Ethiopia remains paused until the U.S. government receives assurances that aid will reach its intended recipients. The senior official reiterated their commitment to working with the Ethiopian government on additional reforms to ensure effective distribution.
In June of the 2022 fiscal year, USAID suspended food aid to Ethiopia due to concerns of widespread theft and diversion of donations. At the time, a spokesperson stated that USAID had determined, in coordination with the Ethiopian government, that a “widespread and coordinated campaign is diverting food assistance from the people of Ethiopia.”
It is noteworthy that the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) had previously resumed distributing food aid in parts of the Tigray region in August after a three-month pause. The pause had been initiated in response to reports of widespread theft of donations, and it was later extended to include all of Ethiopia in June.
This resumption of aid to refugees is a crucial step towards addressing the dire humanitarian situation in Ethiopia, but ongoing efforts to ensure the effective delivery of aid and assistance to those in need will remain a top priority for the United States and its partners.