CARE Canada

Published purpose

(26 July 2011) 2011 is proving to be the driest year since 1951 in many parts of east Africa as a result of an increasingly severe drought. Successive seasons of failed rains, combined with increasing food prices, conflict, and limited humanitarian access, have resulted in food insecurity, water shortages, and acute malnutrition rates well above emergency thresholds. Between 11 and 12 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. With CIDA support, CARE is assisting more than 40,000 mothers and children suffering from acute malnutrition in the drought-affected East and West Harerghe districts in eastern Ethiopia. CARE's programme consists of therapeutic treatment, in stabilisation centres, for severely malnourished children and supplementary feeding, on an out-patient basis, for moderately malnourished mothers and children, to prevent further deterioration of their status. In addition, CARE expects to provide training to local health workers to increase their capacity to respond to future nutrition crises.