UAE's USD$ 5M contribution helps sustain food rations to refugees, address critical nutrition gaps in Ethiopia

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and its partners are providing food and nutrition support to over 740,000 refugees in Ethiopia, thanks to a US$ 5 million contribution by the Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Made available through the Famine Relief Fund (FRF), the funding helps sustain monthly food distributions for all refugees and allows UNHCR to run special nutrition programmes, currently benefitting close to 38,000 children aged 6 to 23 months and more than 27,000 pregnant and lactating women.

Ethiopia is one of the countries in the region facing the imapct of catastrophic drought, severely impacting lives and livelihoods. Food shortages have been further exacerbated by rising food and commodity prices due to the Ukraine war.

“UNHCR is grateful to the people and Government of the United Arab Emirates for this support, which has come at a time when resource constraints necessitated introducing further cuts in food rations for refugees,” said Margaret Atieno, UNHCR’s Deputy Representative in Ethiopia. “This donation will contribute to reducing undernutrition and associated health problems and deaths," she said.

The worsening food security and nutrition situation is compounded by the recent reduction of food assistance to refugees in Ethiopia to only half of a full ration due to funding shortfalls. Without urgent additional funding, resources will no longer be available to procure food for refugees as of September.

ENDS 

For more information please contact:

Neven Crvenkovic, UNHCR/Addis Ababa, [email protected], Mob. +251 948 053 450