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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ADDIS ABABA 002901 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV EAID EAGR ET
SUBJECT: THE VIEW FROM AFAR 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1. (U) In two separate September forays into southern and 
western areas of Afar regional state, Embassy staff found a 
marginalized population, neglected by formal central 
government structures, and dependent on their communal 
pastoralist lifestyle to sustain them through the three 
months of the year during which they do not receive food 
assistance.  Denied any humanitarian relief allocation during 
the current drought, the joint Ethiopian Government 
(GoE)-donor Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and its new 
Pastoral Assistance Pilot initiative provide critical support 
to one of Ethiopia's most remote and destitute regions. 
EmbOff also visited two USG-funded projects in southern Afar 
which empower women through economic independence and 
combating gender-based discrimination so endemic to Afari 
culture.  End Summary. 
 
SIX YEARS WITHOUT RAINS 
----------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) While fertile valleys along Afar's western boundary 
tease one with false hopes of fleeting prosperity, the Afari 
landscape quickly gives way to a desiccated wasteland of 
thorn bushes, scrub brush, and barren caked earth.  Gulina 
woreda officials in western Afar reported on September 8 that 
the region has received only minimal rains over the past six 
years resulting in the nearly absolute depletion of any 
pasture in the woreda.  In response, many pastoralists from 
the area had migrated away to neighboring Amhara region or 
southern parts of Afar in search of pasture.  While some may 
return as conditions improve, local officials reported a 
sharp increase in "pastoralist drop-outs" who have given up 
the traditional way of life due to environmental conditions. 
 
¶3. (U) Driving through the woreda, EmbOffs observed 
consistently skinny cattle, but sheep and goats in relatively 
better physical condition.  Locals explained that the four 
days of the current "rainy" season during which rain did fall 
did help regenerate shrubs which small ruminants can eat, but 
larger animals such as cattle, which require grasses, cannot. 
 Still, after only three to five days of sun green shoots 
already begin to vanish from the region's fragile ecosystem. 
Woreda officials noted that recent months had seen a sharp 
increase in livestock deaths including over 300 camels, one 
thousand cattle, and 900 shoats throughout the woreda. 
Despite the current dire conditions, locals reported that 
this is the first time the woreda has seen appreciable levels 
of malnutrition in three years, with over 80 malnourished 
children from two of the woreda's kebeles having been seen at 
health centers.  Sparse health care facilities likely limit 
the numbers of cases reported.  Locals showed EmbOffs the 
wild berries that they have begun eating over the past two 
months to make up for the lack of adequate food stocks. 
Because, culturally, Afaris feed babies and children first, 
the area has seen much more prominent incidents of 
malnutrition among adults and teens than other areas in the 
country. 
 
NO "RELIEF" IN SIGHT 
-------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Despite the clear plight of the Afari population, the 
GoE has yet to establish a formal figure for the number of 
beneficiaries in need of relief food assistance.  Despite the 
fact that the PSNP is designed to safeguard productive 
household and community assets to sustain external shocks, 
and is specifically not designed as a food relief mechanism, 
the GoE has continued to argue that the Safety Net will cover 
the needs of Afar.  While the Safety Net normally provides 
external assistance to beneficiary households for nine months 
of the year, the effects of the drought have forced 
administrators to approve "contingency" Safety Net resources 
to cover the remaining three months -- effectively putting 
the region on social support for the entire year.  True to 
their pastoral ways, residents indicated that their 
community's first priority is the rehabilitation of grazing 
land, initiatives supported by the PSNP's Pastoral Assistance 
Pilot effort that leverages community labor to delimit area 
enclosures where grazing is restricted to allow for pasture 
regeneration. 
 
¶5. (U) Despite the fact that local woreda officials determine 
 
ADDIS ABAB 00002901  002 OF 003 
 
 
the number of beneficiaries requiring assistance, locals 
report that regional or central government officials 
unilaterally revise these figures downward without reviewing 
local conditions, consulting local authorities, or allowing a 
mechanism to appear the determinations.  Gulina woreda 
officials told EmbOffs that although over 13,000 people in 
their community require food assistance, the GoE has 
unilaterally set the approved PSNP beneficiary figure at 
7,950.  They reported a similar experience in neighboring 
Teru woreda where the official beneficiary tally was set at 
10,000 despite over 21,000 needing support.  Despite the 
final official figures, Afari cultural norms dictate that all 
in the community share what they have with each other.  As 
such, while PSNP beneficiaries share their food allocations 
with their neighbors, those in the community who do not need 
external support also share what they have with beneficiary 
families as well as those who fall through the porous safety 
net.  As a result, beneficiaries on average may finally 
consume closer to five kilograms of food per month, as 
compared to the reduced ration of ten kilograms provided by 
the PSNP, or the 15 kilograms apportioned when the country 
has adequate food stocks to meet domestic needs. 
 
USG FUNDED PROJECTS EMPOWER WOMEN, BENEFIT COMMUNITY 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶6. (U) In a separate trip to central Afar, EmbOff visited the 
DRL funded Hope for Women Project (Hope Project) in Chifra 
Woreda, and also a small livestock replenishment project in 
Gewane Woreda funded by the Ambassador's Special Self Help 
(SSH) Fund.  Both projects primarily benefit women and 
children, seeking to empower women to solve their own 
problems through economic independence and education.  They 
both also have the right political support: they are backed 
heavily by the Afar Regional Ministry of Women's Affairs 
(MoWA) and an Afari federal Parliamentarian and regional 
First Lady. 
 
 
¶7. (U) In Afar generally, women suffer from gender-specific 
human rights abuses such as female genital mutilation (FGM), 
lack of access to education, and a lack of equal rights seen 
in early marriages (absuma), wife inheritances, negligible 
property rights, and a work overload.  Further, women 
typically lack decision-making power and their economic 
dependence on men, who often exhibit and pass down sexist 
attitudes, exacerbates gender abuses across generations.  Any 
solution must therefore target both genders.  The two-year 
Hope Project trains key community decision-makers (e.g. 
imams, clan leaders, and government officials, all mostly 
men) in women's rights and then hosts community-wide 
dialogues on these issues.  It also created 20 all-women 
savings cooperatives that offer a needed economic buffer 
against community-wide hardships, while also providing women 
with growing economic independence and a forum for discussing 
gender abuses.  Many cooperative members reported concrete 
results in reducing the amount of FGM cases (approx. 20) in 
Chifra due to these forums.  The head of the MoWA also said a 
recent region-wide conference between officials, elders, and 
religious leaders decided to attach heavy penalties (50 to 
100 camels and no burial rights) for individuals caught 
circumcising women. 
 
¶8. (U) Successive drought and conflict strike women 
particularly hard in Briforo town in Gewane woreda.  The 30 
beneficiary households of the SSH project lost between 50 to 
70 percent of their livestock from repeated droughts.  Also, 
conflict with the neighboring Issa tribe over border 
expansion and scarce resources widowed over 40 percent of 
women in beneficiary households.  (Note: In the week before 
EmbOff's visit, the Issa reportedly killed eight Afaris and 
looted 200 livestock and camels.  The Afari federal 
parliamentarian alleges Djiboutian government support for the 
Issa. End Note).  The SSH Fund distributed two horses and 
carts (a lion ate one horse) and 241 goats to primarily 
widow-headed households with multiple children.  Then, 
through organized income-generating cooperatives, the women 
breed goats, cart and sell water to the town, and craft grass 
sleeping mats for sale to passing truckers. 
 
SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE 
--------------------- 
 
¶9. (U) Despite its unforgiving climate and desolate 
 
ADDIS ABAB 00002901  003 OF 003 
 
 
landscape, even areas of remote Afar showed signs of social 
infrastructure.  Woreda officials escorted EmbOffs to a 
remote area where a permanent community school, water tower, 
and single-room health outpost emerged out of the void of the 
cracked, sun-baked desolation of the environment.  As our 
convoy stopped, a small community slowly materialized from 
the nothingness of the surroundings to confirm that both 
their sons and daughters attend the GoE-established school. 
Further south, in Chifra woreda, community members confirmed 
that a mosque stood nearby, constructed by the community. 
Locals also confirmed that they were aware of, and 
participated in, the local elections conducted in April. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) While these forays into Afar sparked no epiphanies 
among EmbOffs, they clearly provided texture and detail to 
Post's perception of this forgotten of Ethiopian regions. 
Discussions highlighted the environmental threat to the 
continued viability of Afari pastoralists' very lifestyle. 
Although the local government has made efforts from its 
modest resources to establish social services, and local 
communities also contribute to these efforts, the region's 
low population density and pastoral lifestyle limits the 
coverage of these resources.  While our visits found no 
evidence of encroachment of fundamentalist ideology into the 
region by Wahabist organizations -- either directly or 
through investments in mosques or schools -- the Afar 
region's overwhelmingly Muslim and socio-economically 
marginal population would certainly be fertile ground for 
such overtures in the absence of alternatives.  End Comment. 
YAMAMOTO