Simple Solutions will Help Speed Recovery for Ethiopian Families

Simple Solutions will Help Speed Recovery
for Ethiopian Families

26 October, 2011 | Barbara Frost & Jan Eliasson (Huffington Post)
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The crisis gripping the Horn of Africa continues to devastate
families and communities. Twelve million people in Kenya, Ethiopia,
Somalia and Djibouti are suffering food shortages and the worst
drought in sixty years.

The needs are many and the scale of the

crisis is daunting. But there is evidence

that low cost, sustainable solutions which

provide basic services such as safe water

and sanitation are helping some

communities cope.

The drought is affecting 4.6 million in

Ethiopia where WaterAid has worked

since 1983. As if a major drought were

not enough, the Ethiopian and Kenyan

governments, to their credit, are also hosting hundreds of thousands
of Somali refugees.

In response, Governments and aid agencies are providing
humanitarian and emergency relief to the millions of people now in
desperate need. The UK Department for International
Development is committing over £95 million, the United States
USAID is providing $600 million and the EU €700 million.

WaterAid, like many NGOs, governments and UN agencies active
in the region is also providing assistance. We are focusing on
sustainable water and sanitation facilities. This dual track approach
can help communities in this part of Africa deal with the current
crisis as well as be more resilient to future droughts.

Droughts are common in the Horn of Africa because of cyclical
weather patterns. But famine should be avoidable even with a
drought as severe as this one. A longer term approach that provides
sustainable services is crucial in helping communities to become
more resilient to the impact of these sever climatic events.

In the drought affected regions of Ethiopia we have found that
simple, cost-effective technologies are supplying water and
sanitation to local communities. The continued access to these basic
services makes them less susceptible to diarrhoea-related diseases
and cholera and enables their communities to better withstand the
debilitating effects of the drought.

Marisa Okosho lives with his family in Sariti village in Ethiopia
where WaterAid runs water, sanitation and hygiene projects. These
interventions are not expensive or overly complicated, but they can
make a difference when it comes to dealing with droughts when
they occur.

"Unlike previous years, we are not so weak and women don't have
to walk long distances without food in their stomachs. Diseases in
the area have also gone down and children are not getting sick all
the time so we don't have to go to the clinic as often. Hopefully, in
the future we will be even stronger when fighting the drought."

Simple management of groundwater resources can also help
communities maintain more sustainable access to water and
sanitation as groundwater is not as susceptible to drought as surface
water.

In the Konso region of Ethiopia, sand dams have proved effective.
These dams are built across seasonal rivers. When the rains come,
water builds up behind the dams, with the sand acting as a basic
water filter with the additional benefit that the sand slows down the
evaporation, which makes the water available for a longer time.
Using a simple hand pump, water can be drawn for household use
and even agriculture for several months, enabling a community to
withstand a dry season.

Despite these longer term solutions, there is no doubt about the
value of humanitarian relief so urgently needed in the region right
now. The horrific stories coming from the Horn of Africa are
heartbreaking. All too often it's the women and children who are the
most vulnerable.

But what we are also finding in some affected regions of Ethiopia is
that low cost interventions which provide basic necessities such as
water and sanitation enable families and entire communities to be
more resilient to droughts and food insecurity.

A sand dam or a rope pump will not, by itself, enable a family in
Ethiopia to escape the consequences of a crippling drought, nor will
it tackle the underlying problems that create famine and chronic
hunger. But these relatively simple solutions are enabling families in
Ethiopia right now to confront this crisis better than they would be
able to do otherwise. And it will help speed the recovery process
for them in the long term.

Courtesy