• 4th year greening to begin shortly marking end of challenge
BY ABDUREZAK MOHAMMED
ADDIS ABABA – The government of Ethiopia has always been resolute to expedite the supply of humanitarian assistance to the needy people Tigray, Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) said, calling the international community to intensify humanitarian response to all war and drought-affected people.
At a media briefing she held here yesterday, PMO Press Secretariat Spokesperson Billene Seyoum stated that the federal government has sent 2.1 billion Birr in cash for humanitarian assistance to Tigray State between July 2021 and June 3 2022 citing data obtained from National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC). Also, 217, 000 kgs of medicine;130,000 kg snon-food items; 87,000metric tons of food, and 783,000 liters of fuel have been delivered to the area. Excluding humanitarian flights, 1,306 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid destined to Tigray in the months of April and May of the current year.
Billene also reported that 19,000 and 244,000 metric tons of food have been dispatched for war-affected people in Afar and Amhara states respectively.“Within the past four weeks, we have seen rhetoric of gearing up for another confrontation from the other side.” Unfortunately, this is coming in alignment with the farming season if TPLF is [beating]the war drums again as it has been doing over the past few weeks, this is going to be at the expense of citizens within the Tigray State and farming communities that have been affected by COVID-19 pandemic and missed farming seasons in the past eighteen months because of the war.”
Regarding the drought, Billene noted that some parts of the country have been experiencing dire drought as a result of consecutive below average rainfall.At a policy level, Ethiopia has put in place several policies and institutional measures including cluster farming and irrigation based lowland wheat productivity whichhas shown considerable success.
“At response level for the needs to drought afflicted communities in immediate term, the government has responded much early and intensified national effort to enhance effectiveness of disaster risk management. Per recent data received from NDRMC indicated fromJuly 2021 to May 2022, over 3.2 million beneficiaries have received food assistance mostly from Oromia, Somali, and South Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ states.”
Noting 2022 remarks the fourth and final year of the GreenLegacy Challenge which was embarked in 2019 to plant 20 billion seedlings, the she indicated that this year’s program will be launched with in the next two weeks.
“This does not mean we will stop there but it highlights that milestone has been achieves over the last four years commitment to plant 20 billion seedlings, we expect to exceed plan for data shows already 18 billion has been planted, the initiative included planting edible seedlings variety. Hence, this year’s seedling plantation is in tandem with urban agriculture and backyard farming efforts being promoted aimed to partially addressing food security and global rising food cost.”
The June 7/2022
