VZCZCXYZ0067
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHNR #3441/01 2201440
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 081440Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY NAIROBI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3571
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA PRIORITY 8705
RUEHBS/AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS PRIORITY 1712
RUEHDJ/AMEMBASSY DJIBOUTI PRIORITY 4312
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 4984
INFO RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 3986
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAUSA/DEPT OF HHS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHPH/CDC ATLANTA GA PRIORITY 2965
RHMFIUU/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RHMFISS/CJTF HOA  PRIORITY
RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC PRIORITY 1302
RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC PRIORITY 1303
RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS NAIROBI 003441 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AIDAC 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/E, AF/EPS, AF/PD, EB, PRM/AF, IO 
AID FOR AA/DCHA, MHESS, WGARVELINK, LROGERS, MHESS, 
DCHA/OTI 
DCHA/OFDA FOR GGOTTLIEB, PMORRIS, CGOTTSCHALK, 
KCHANNELL 
DCHA/FFP FOR DHAMMINK, JDWORKEN, JDRUMMOND, TANDERSON, 
DNELSON 
DCHA/PPM FOR SBRADLEY 
AID/EGAT FOR AA/EGAT, JSCHAFER, JTURK 
AFR/EA FOR JBORNS, SMCCLURE 
ADDIS ABABA FOR SHELLY CHEATHAM 
DJIBOUTI FOR JSCHULMAN 
ROME FOR FODAG RICH NEWBERG 
GENEVA FOR NKYLOH 
BRUSSELS FOR PLERNER 
NSC FOR JMELINE, TSHORTLEY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAID ECON PHUM PREF PREL IGAD CENTCOM KE
SO, DY, ET 
 
SUBJECT:  HORN OF AFRICA, STATE - USAID HUMANITARIAN 
CABLE UPDATE NUMBER 8 
 
REF:  A) STATE 27057; B) NAIROBI 02414 
 
This is the last update cable in response to Ref A 
request for bi-weekly reports on the humanitarian 
situation in the Horn of Africa.  USAID Missions in 
Kenya and Ethiopia, USAID/East Africa (Somalia, 
Djibouti), and OFDA/ECARO contributed to this report. 
 
In the future, USAID/EA plans to issue quarterly 
reports on Famine Prevention Fund activities and 
periodic reports on the regional eastern and central 
Africa (ECA) food security situation, which will 
include the Horn of Africa. 
 
---------------- 
REGIONAL SUMMARY 
---------------- 
 
1.FEWSNET continues to classify the Horn of Africa 
pastoralist zones as an emergency, despite the improved 
performance of the long rains compared to the 2005 
failed seasons.  Although key pastoral environmental 
indicators such as the availability of water, pasture 
and browse have improved in the short term, livelihood 
recovery will take years.  In Kenya, livestock and 
livelihood recovery due to the 3 - 6 failed seasons 
will be slow.  Food insecurity in Northwest Kenya is 
currently particularly acute. In Ethiopia, the southern 
zones of the Somali region remain the most food 
insecure of the country and facing continued crisis due 
to spotty rains and conflict.  In southern Somalia, 
civil insecurity and conflict remains the biggest 
uncertainty.  Crops did not perform well in Gedo, Juba 
valley and Bakol regions, and malnutrition rates remain 
high at 20 percent.  In Djibouti, the dry lean season 
and scorching summer heat has dried out meager pasture 
lands.  Deep wells and water trucking are the only 
sources of water in most parts of pastoral livelihood 
zones. 
 
--------------- 
COUNTRY REPORTS 
--------------- 
 
¶2.  KENYA 
 
UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE: 
A multi-agency long rains assessment is underway and 
will be completed on August 12, 2006.  The assessment 
covers 27 Arid and Semi Arid Lands districts.  The 
final assessment report is expected to be available 
around the end of August. 
 
On food aid, a cereals pipeline break is expected in 
September. The latest unconfirmed pledge towards the 
WFP-led EMOP is 7,400 MT of Rice from the Japanese 
Government. The USG is working towards another 
contribution of 14,000 MT in assorted commodities 
 
including cereals valued at approximately $9.9 million 
to reduce the pipeline gap bound to occur beyond 
September. 
 
UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK: 
The 2006 long rains have ended in most areas of the 
country. In the high potential cropping areas of the 
Rift Valley and Western Provinces rainfall is expected 
to continue through August and into early September. In 
spite of the good rains, household food security 
remains precarious in the drought-affected pastoral, 
arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya.  In addition, milk 
availability is limited since livestock herds have only 
just begun to recover from high mortality and the 
extremely poor conditions during the dry season that 
have resulted in a very low proportion of animals 
lactating.  As a result, malnutrition rates in many of 
these areas have shown little improvement.  FEWSNET 
reports that substantial losses of livestock between 
November and March have severely eroded the productive 
asset base of pastoralists.  Due to the extent of 
livestock losses, most drought-affected households are 
forced to rely on relief food aid.  Recovery for 
drought affected households will require substantial 
rebuilding of herds, a process likely to take several 
good seasons, which have become increasingly rare. 
 
¶3.  ETHIOPIA 
 
UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE: 
USAID/OFDA continues to respond to humanitarian needs 
resulting from the regional drought.  In July, 
USAID/OFDA teams traveled to Oromiya and Southern 
Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP) regions to 
assess humanitarian conditions and monitor ongoing 
USAID/OFDA-funded programs.  The recent rainy season 
was beneficial for water, pasture, and browse, 
resulting in improved conditions for agriculture and 
livestock.  However, as the upcoming dry season 
approaches conditions are likely to deteriorate. 
 
On July 24, the USAID/OFDA Regional Advisor (RA) for 
the Horn of Africa arrived in Addis Ababa for a ten day 
visit.  The RA met with partners to discuss the 
progress, including successes and challenges, of 
community-based therapeutic care (CTC) programs in the 
country. 
 
According to Oromiya Region health officials, more than 
5,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea were identified in 
health facilities in West Arsi Zone, Oromiya Region 
since late June.  Health clinics have reported at least 
33 related deaths; however, an unknown number of people 
may have died without seeking treatment.  Ministry of 
Health, U.N. agencies, and NGOs have mobilized teams to 
respond to the outbreak.  USAID/OFDA partner Population 
Services International (PSI) is providing point-of- 
contact water treatment products and training to 
 
woreda-level health officials. 
The recent acute watery diarrhea outbreak in West Arsi 
Zone, Oromiya Region is reportedly resulting in 
increased needs for food assistance for affected 
populations.  Food security in the region is worrisome 
due to poor rain performance in some lowland areas of 
East and West Harerge zones.  Following the 
deterioration of the food security situation, the 
region has requested food allocations from the DPPA. 
 
As of August 7, USAID/OFDA has programmed nearly USD 14 
million, primarily through grants to eleven partner 
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), U.N. Children's 
Fund, and U.N. World Food Program. 
 
As for food aid, WFP has yet to receive beneficiary 
numbers from the DPPA for the second half of 2006.  As 
a result, WFP remains unable to concretely report on 
the pipeline outlook.  In the best case scenario with 
1.5 million people needing emergency food assistance, 
the cereal pipeline will break in December and require 
an additional 10,000 metric tons (MT).  In the worst 
case scenario with 3.0 million beneficiaries, the 
cereal pipeline will break in September and the total 
shortfall would be 177,000 MT.  WFP will revise these 
estimates once the DPPA releases the final beneficiary 
numbers. 
 
Pastoralist Livelihood Initiative Update:  Most drought 
response programs have wound down in the PLI as a 
result of rains through much of the drought affected 
areas.  Pastoralists have discontinued emergency sale 
of livestock, although healthy livestock markets 
reinforced by market linkages through PLI have resulted 
in continued high prices and good levels of sales for 
livestock headed northwards to the Awash/Addis markets. 
Maintenance of breeding herds and emergency health 
interventions have also wound down for the moment, but 
because of insufficient rains in many of the affected 
areas, particularly in Eastern Somali Region, these may 
have to re-start before long.  Conflict and heavy 
security presence have limited the activities of PLI 
partners in the southern parts of Somali region, 
especially the more drought affected areas of Gode, 
Deghabur, and Korahe Zones in Somali Region. 
Although reasonably good rains in most drought-affected 
areas in southern Ethiopia were received in April, 
subsequent rains have been spotty and there remain many 
areas that did not receive sufficient rain to see them 
through to the next rainy season.  Essential nutrition, 
water and other responses are underway, including an 
assessment of a recent outbreak of acute watery 
diarrhea.  In addition, other pastoralist and 
agricultural areas not affected by the earlier drought 
are now facing drought conditions, mainly in pockets in 
Afar and northern Somali regions, as well as parts of 
East Harerge Zone in Oromiya Region and Amhara Region. 
 
UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK: 
On July 20, the Government of Ethiopia's Disaster 
Prevention and Preparedness Agency (DPPA) sponsored a 
debriefing session for the mid-year multi-agency 
emergency assessment.  Joint teams assessed conditions 
in six regions during a three-week period from mid-June 
to early July.  According to the assessment teams, the 
overall prospect of the belg rains and crop production 
is rated as promising, except in some pocket areas in 
parts of Amhara and eastern Oromiya regions.  The DPPA 
is currently reviewing the assessment results and the 
associated recommendations for beneficiary numbers.  As 
a result, official updates on revised beneficiary 
numbers for the period of August to December are yet to 
be released from the federal government. 
 
Conflict worsened conditions and made the response more 
difficult.  A serious conflict between the Borena and 
the Guji in Oromiya Region resulted in a large number 
of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and temporarily 
disrupted access to a number of areas.  Heavy security 
presence in Somali Region as well as pockets of 
fighting has disrupted emergency activities and food 
aid was only seven percent of the planned totals for 
June. 
 
¶4.  SOMALIA 
UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE: 
WFP is beginning a new two year Protracted Relief and 
Recovery Operation (PRRO) on August 1, 2006.  The 
operation is expected to assist 2.1 million 
beneficiaries with 170,686 MTs of food commodities 
costing US $124 million.  The food will be targeted 
towards relief distributions (125,000 MTs); Food for 
Work/Food for Training (28,000 MTs); Mother-Child 
Health (11,000 MTs); Social Support to orphans, 
elderly, and chronically ill (3,000 MTs); and school 
feeding (3,000 MTs).  WFP has already received 10 
percent of the total amount ($13.2 million) from over 
ten donors with the largest contributors being the 
Netherlands and Saudi Arabia.  USAID is in the process 
of making its first contribution to this new operation. 
WFP?s pipeline is full through the end of 2006 for 
pulses, oils, and fortified corn-soya blend (CSB) but 
faces shortages in cereals beginning in October.  The 
pipeline gap in cereals for 2006 is 37,206 and should 
be mostly resourced with USAID/Food for Peace?s pending 
contribution. 
 
Early indications from USAID partners indicate that the 
impact of the Union of Islamic Courts takeover has been 
a decrease in roadblocks reducing the cost and time for 
humanitarian shipments as well as a reduction in sea 
piracy. 
To date, USAID/OFDA has programmed nearly 6 million USD 
in humanitarian assistance, focusing on water, 
sanitation, health, nutrition and livelihood sectors in 
the high risk regions of Gedo, Bay, Bakool, Lower and 
 
Middle Juba. 
UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK: 
FEWSNET and the FSAU estimate that over 2 million 
people continue to face either a livelihood crisis or a 
humanitarian emergency.  The overall performance of the 
2006 March-May gu (main) season in terms of crop 
production and rangeland condition was below normal. 
However, preliminary reports indicate a harvest at 71% 
of post-war average yields, and the number of drought- 
affected people anticipated to need humanitarian 
assistance should drop from 1.7 million to 1.3 million. 
The livestock sector is confronted with poor lactating 
and calving rates, increasing the overall poor 
nutrition, and cereal market prices are a their 
highest levels in over six years. 
¶5.  DJIBOUTI 
 
UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES AND DONOR RESPONSE: 
According to FEWSNET reports pastoralists in all rural 
livelihood zones entered a lean period from June-August 
during which their food security situation is 
precarious, and WFP led EMOP is assisting them in 
filling the food gaps.  WFP is distributing 800 MT per 
month for 5 drought affected districts in rural 
Djibouti and targets 47,500 beneficiaries for general 
distribution and supplementary feeding.  The program 
was to end on 15 September but WFP submitted a budget 
revision and will now end in December 2006.  The budget 
revision included an additional one month buffer stock 
of 20,000 rations to cope with the current increase in 
population movements. For the PRRO (for Somali 
refugees), WFP has just closed Holl Holl camp, leaving 
one camp - Ali Ade - for 10,000 remaining refugees 
(down from 17,260 refugees in March 2005, who have been 
repatriated to northern Somalia). WFP plans to 
repatriate 6,000 more leaving 4,000 refugees by 
December 2006.  The USG is a major contributor to WFP?s 
PRRO and EMOP at 3,210MT valued at $2 million.  The 
other donors to WFP are Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and 
Canada. 
 
OFDA has provided $200,000 to UNICEF Djibouti to 
implement a therapeutic feeding program in Djibouti 
city.  This includes training of local health workers, 
community mobilization, provision of therapeutic food 
and working with the Ministry of Health to develop 
nutrition guidelines and policies related to 
supplemental and therapeutic feeding programs. 
 
UPDATE ON THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK: 
June-August are the hottest months in Djibouti and 
natural resources (water, pasture and browse) become 
scarce in all pastoral zones as a result of the start 
of the dry season. Deep wells and water trucking are 
the sole sources of water in most parts of pastoral 
livelihood zones.  Browsing animals (goats and camels) 
are better equipped to survive these conditions than 
grazing animals (cattle and sheep), which depend on 
 
 
increasingly depleted pasture.   In the southeast 
pastoral livelihood zones, the number of lactating 
goats is expected to be limited in the coming milking 
period (August to October), leading to reduced milk 
production.  Minimum food or income can be derived from 
herds under these conditions, and the risk of food 
deficits in pastoral areas is further heightened by the 
reduction of remittances in response to the higher cost 
of staple food prices in urban areas. 
 
Many people migrate out of the city to escape the heat 
in the dry hot months of June-August, and urban 
migrations have an effect on petty trade, an activity 
practiced by poor households thus reducing their 
purchasing power, and further reduces the remittances 
to the pastoral areas due to the high cost of staple 
food prices in urban areas.  The decline in the income 
of the urban poor contributes to low dietary intake and 
consequently higher malnutrition rates.  UNICEF in 
collaboration with the Ministry of Health have recently 
opened 10 supplementary feeding centers inside Djibouti 
City and the program is planned to be extended further 
to other districts within the territory of Djibouti. 
 
-------------------------- 
REGIONAL RAINFALL FORECAST 
-------------------------- 
 
¶6. According to IGAD Climate Prediction and 
Applications Center (ICPAC), the 2005 - 2006 drought in 
the Horn of Africa saw some of the driest conditions 
recorded since 1961.  Then, in early March 2006, the 
normal rainy season was preceded again by abnormal 
weather  -- this time, unusual wet conditions in 
western Kenya due to a tropical cyclone over the 
southwest Indian Ocean, followed by a three-week dry 
period.   The rainy season that followed during late 
March to May was poorly distributed and not sufficient 
to begin a recovery period from the drought 
particularly in the most severe drought areas of 
northeast Kenya, southeast Ethiopia, and Southern 
Somalia.  The ICPAC consensus outlook for June - 
September 2006 forecasts average rainfall across the 
region -- although ?average? needs to be caveated since 
these months are not the rainy season in the pastoral 
zone.   Although isolated showers have improved 
pasturelands and crops that were planted late, overall 
below normal vegetation conditions are seen in many of 
the pastoral areas.  The October ? December rains, 
which are normally lighter than the spring rains, will 
be critical if an even more severe emergency crisis is 
to be avoided in the first half of 2007. 
 
HOOVER