The United Nations estimates that $1 billion is needed to stave off a major humanitarian catastrophe, yet only around $200 million in new money has been provided over these last two critical weeks. In 1984-85 when a major famine was declared in the region, more than 1 million were killed. With aid agencies battling to cope with the scale of the crisis, Oxfam said it was morally indefensible that several countries and donors had failed to contribute generously.
“A crisis of this magnitude must not be allowed to happen again,” said Ray Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. “It is in no way inevitable and solutions do exist. The worst affected areas have endured decades of marginalization and economic under-development. If more action had been taken earlier we would not now be at the stage where so many people are facing starvation.”
In the short-term the $800 million black hole in the aid response to the crisis must be filled but governments and donors must also do more in the long-term to address the issues that have made people vulnerable in the first place.
The UK has so far led the way in recently pledging new aid. To fill the funding black hole, other traditional big donors such as the US will need to make comparable, new contributions as over the last couple of weeks the US has only pledged $15 million in new money. In southern Somalia where famine has been declared and where 3 million people are in need of assistance the USG is not responding. While the US has given $57,209,208 in assistance to date to Somalia, most if not all of this assistance has gone to northern and central Somalia.
“The USG should be commended for starting to ramp up its response to the drought in the fall of last year” said Offenheiser. “However, given the urgency of the crisis, the US needs to immediately restart programs in southern Somalia.”
The European response has been surprisingly slow as well, with donors such as Italy and Denmark so far not providing anything new. The French have been strong on words, calling for an Extraordinary G20 meeting on the issue, but have so far failed to back it up with any additional money. Other donors such as Germany and Spain have made initial contributions but these are small and need to be followed up with more resources as soon as possible. Given the scale of the crisis, donors in the rest of the world will also need to pay their share.
While immediate assistance will help people survive, it is not enough—not in the face of repeated drought, which has now become the norm in the region. Governments and the international community need to treat this as a long-term problem as well as an urgent crisis.
As well as chronic neglect, in some areas people’s ability to cope with drought has also been undermined by land policies that restrict access to grazing areas, and by the ongoing conflict in Somalia which has destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and exacerbated the refugee crisis which has forced 135,000 people to flee Somalia this year. According to the UN, nearly half the children from southern Somalia seeking safety in Ethiopian refugee camps are arriving malnourished.
Oxfam on the ground
Oxfam is now responding to the crisis by providing life-saving water, sanitation services, food, and cash. The organization aims to reach 3 million people, including 700,000 in Ethiopia, 1.3 million in Kenya, and 500,000 in Somalia, where conflict has increased people’s suffering and malnutrition rates are climbing.
The overall humanitarian requirements for the region this year, according to the UN appeals, are $1.87 billion. These are so far 45 percent funded, leaving a gap of over $1 billion still remaining: gaps of $332 million and $296 million for the Kenya and Somalia UN appeals respectively, and $398 milion for the government-run appeal in Ethiopia.
In the last two weeks there have been new pledges of $205 million, leaving a gap of $800 million still remaining.
The UK has pledged an estimated $145 million in the past two weeks - almost 15 percent of what is needed. While the US has provided $383 million to the drought relief in FY 11, the US has pledged only $15 million in new money in the past two weeks. The EU has pledged around $8 million so far, with more expected in the coming days. Spain has pledged nearly $10 million, Germany around $8.5 million. France has so far not pledged any new money, and Denmark and Italy have said no significant new sums are available.
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It’s dim inside, lit only by the gray afternoon light streaming through the door. But it’s ample enough for me to study their faces— solemn and engrossed—as they listen to their chairwoman, Meshu Babure, tell how this group, whose name means “love” in Afan Oromo, came to be—and how it is now changing the lives of its 150 members.
Outside, the bustle in the association’s compound in Oine Chefo Umbure has stopped for the moment as everyone takes cover. A small crew of men—with the women’s help—has been mixing cement and hauling rocks for the foundation of yet another new building, this one to house the diesel-powered grain mill Jalala recently bought with support from a group of European ambassadors’ spouses who had visited the organization. The association will use the mill to grind grain for their community and generate income for their members.
A hum of activity seems to define the place. Along with the grain mill, the Jalala women are constructing a building to serve as a store for the community, because the market that most people frequent is a long distance off. Across the yard, the frame of a small office building rises next to the grain bank, and sitting in the center of the growing complex is a mud-walled poultry facility. Beyond the compound, with the help of the Center for Development Initiatives, or CDI, an Oxfam partner, Jalala has orchestrated the construction of a school for the community where none had been before. It was to open in September for students through grade four.
The women of Jalala are working this magic in a corner of Shashemene, a district about 155 miles south of Ethiopia’s capital where a drought in 2008 severely hindered the ability of families to feed themselves and left 46 children dead. Food shortages continue to be a problem here, as most people survive by raising animals and farming small plots of land. In August, hope for a healthy harvest hides some of the sorrow that earlier hardship bred: fields of green stretch to the horizon with the promise that maize and wheat may soon fill grain banks that community members established in recent years with the help of CDI and Oxfam.
Much, though, is dependent on the rain— will there be enough to feed the crops?— and on people’s good health to carry on with the hard physical labor a subsistence life demands. As elsewhere in Africa, HIV/ AIDS has taken a toll in this region, leaving people weak and many children orphaned.
It was that sweeping problem that first launched the Jalala Women’s Association and where Meshu Babure heard the earliest whispers of what has now become her calling: to better the lives of women—and their families—in the communities around her.
Babure had completed high school—the only woman in her community to do so— when officials from the local government approached her for help in educating households about HIV and family planning. Together with her sister-in-law, Basha Dachasso, Babure set out on her mission, and the pair was soon joined by two other women. That was nine years ago—in 2001.
Their task expanded when the district’s women’s affairs department decided to get a better understanding of poverty in the area and asked the team to register the names of poor women. As they went, the team picked up new members, growing from 10 to 15, until one day they found themselves collected under a massive oda tree—treasured among Oromia people for a canopy broad enough to shelter whole gatherings from the harsh African sun. There, Jalala’s true work was born: The women decided to turn their attention to the poverty that saddled so many of their neighbors.
“I was touched by a woman with a very severe problem—a woman holding a child on her chest and carrying firewood on her back to the market,” says Babure.
Soon, the group decided to start pooling their money to build a small fund from which members could take loans or draw in times of need. By 2007, the women had managed to stash away 4,000 birr—or about $245—and their ranks had grown to 50. Meanwhile, they had also persuaded the local government to give them access to about six acres of land that they started farming. This year they harvested both potatoes and teff, Ethiopia’s staple grain, and have continued to nurture a small plantation of enset, a drought-resistant plant that is a bulwark against hunger.
So far, they have plowed the income they have earned back into their association, using a chunk of it, for instance, to construct the poultry building. But as other organizations have donated goods to Jalala—heifers and seedlings—the group in turn has distributed them among its members.
As Babure retraces all these steps, members quietly pass around a stack of photos. One in particular stands out—proof of the determination that drives them. It shows a woman marching through the furrows of a field, guiding an ox-drawn plow as it digs deep into the earth. It’s work that men usually do. But the women of Jalala manage just fine.
That independence, though, came at a price. Some of the women’s husbands objected to their wives joining Jalala, which has also worked to change harmful traditional practices in the community—like polygamy. One member showed up at a meeting with blood streaming from her head: her husband had beaten her to prevent her attendance. She came anyway.
Early on, Babure herself was threatened, too, for talking about the rights of women, promoting family planning, and discussing the problems of polygamy and the economic burden it places on families.
“Some people said, ‘We will try to kill you,’” she recalls, knowing she would have to endure intimidation to achieve her goals. But Babure had a role model in Nobel Peace Prize-winner Wangari Maathi, a Kenyan woman who had suffered head injuries when she was attacked for planting trees to protest the deforestation of her country. Babure heard about Maathi and found inspiration in her determination and bravery.
Before the women of Jalala organized themselves, most stayed at home, taking orders from their husbands, says Babure, who, at 32, is not married. To encourage others to join their group, the Jalala women composed a rallying song based on some of their traditions. It’s about a fox, who represents poverty. He threatens to enter the women’s houses and bite them. The only way to fend him off is for the women to come out of their houses and join in unity against him.
“If we come together and shout loudly, people will hear us,” says Babure. “If you shout alone, no one will hear you. They will think you are mad.”
The song worked. New members thronged to the group—and slowly attitudes shifted.
Now, the community views women in one of two ways, says Babure: Either as a member of Jalala, with all the strength and independence that confers, or as someone who is not a member. Though Babure’s brother still refuses to talk to her—he disapproves of the energy she is pouring into the association to the exclusion of all else—even her mother has joined Jalala. And, she notes, many of the members’ husbands are now pitching in to help when it comes time to till the fields.
“We showed we can work,” says Babure. “We can produce. We can make a change.”
]]>Southern Sudan is one of the least-developed regions in the world. Its poverty, combined with limited government and aid agency capacity to respond to emergencies and deliver development, exacerbates the potential for renewed conflict.
The people of southern Sudan have shown extraordinary resilience to emerge from decades of war. If they are to have hope for the future, they urgently need development and protection from violence. Sudan faces many interlocking challenges, but if the international community acts now, they are surmountable.
]]>But a hungry child exists in a larger context: if we nourish communities, they can nourish their own children.
The woman on our cover, Fatou Doumbia, and other women in her village in Mali, pooled their resources last year. They set aside nearly a ton of millet as a defense against the hunger they’d seen as food prices spiked. Hers is another face of hunger: determined, resourceful.
After the last harvest, Oxfam reached out to supporters to respond to the food crisis. We’ve devoted much of this issue to looking at what communities have done to avoid the kinds of hardships they confronted. When people living in poverty are hit by a food crisis or natural disaster, they lack resources to tide them over.
Oxfam works to help people build their resilience. Let respect and hope fuel your efforts to support women like Doumbia.
]]>Achieving farm resilience requires building up the resilience of vulnerable farmers by developing their skills, expertise and voice while supporting their use of agro-ecological farming practices. Building resilience depends not just on how farmers manage resources, but on how well local, national, and global institutions support farmers. Agro-ecological practices can empower vulnerable small-scale farmers, offering them both greater control over their lives and an accessible means of improving their food security, while decreasing their risk of crop failure or livestock death due to climate shocks. Vulnerable farmers can use agro-ecological practices to build resilient farms and improve their livelihoods, achieving multiple benefits: 1. improved food security; 2. adaptation to a changing climate; and 3. mitigation of climate change.
People-centred resilience consists of five principles which should guide how investments in vulnerable farming communities are designed and implemented. They are:
Following these principles ensures that investments support farmers in their efforts to become food-secure and adapt to climate change. Four institutions central to delivering people-centered resilience are: secure land rights; dynamic farmer associations; responsive agricultural advisory services; and public support for environmental services.
]]>In Ethiopia, 6.2 million people are in need of immediate food assistance.
For families of herders and part-time farmers in the Oromiya and Tigray regions, the need is acute. Malnutrition levels among the poorest of them have climbed above emergency thresholds set by the World Health Organization. In addition to those needing this emergency assistance, the Ethiopian government is helping 7.5 million other people with food and cash through its Productive Safety Net Program.
Oxfam America is responding to the new crisis with a multi-part relief plan that aims to help about 350,000 people in Tigray and Oromiya. The initiative, which needs the financial support of donors to reach all the intended beneficiaries, includes supplemental feeding for mothers and children, meals for school children, a cash-for-work program that provides families with money to buy food in exchange for labor on community projects, and veterinary care for livestock. The latter will help to ensure cattle, goats, and sheep can weather the drought and continue to provide critical food and income for herding families.
“If we are able to respond in a timely way, we can reach these people, save lives, save livelihoods, and help people to be resilient to future shocks,” said Abera Tola, Oxfam America’s regional director for the Horn of Africa.
In parts of Oromiya’s Borena Zone, the pressure on dwindling resources has increased as migrating herders and their livestock have swept in from Kenya in search of pasture and water. An Oxfam assessment team, sent to the region in early August, reported an estimated 100,000 extra animals, mostly cattle, were severely straining the water supply around in the Moyale, Dillo, Dirre, Teltelle and Arrero districts. In Dillo, the situation was so dire that families in five different areas evacuated their villages.
“The ponds are dry. The land is barren. There is nothing green,” said Tola. “People are desperate.”
In the dry, rural parts of Ethiopia people have long lived with periodic drought, and they have found ways to cope, such as by selling a few heads of healthy livestock and using the cash to buy food. But with droughts becoming increasingly frequent, there is little time—or no time—between them for families to recover their assets and build a new buffer against hardship. Instead, each bout of dry weather pushes many people deeper into poverty, making them more vulnerable to the next round of trouble.
“Drought is like fire,” said an Oromiya elder looking back on last year’s severe shortage of rain. “It just destroyed every household.”
In the Liben district of Oromiya’s Guji Zone, the changes in weather patterns are pushing some herders to give up part of their old way of life—and turn to farming as a solution. Along the banks of the chocolaty Dawa River, Huka Balambal is growing onions and corn with the help of a small irrigation system he devised himself: A noisy pump connected to a long line of hose sucks water from the Dawa and spills it through a maze of muddy channels that Balambal has dug.
Tending solely to animals is what he had done all his life—until now. At 64, with no education and a large family to support, Balambal knew he had to do something different: the days of abundant milk from his cattle and plentiful grasses for them to feed on are gone. In the decades since he was a boy, the pastureland, and consequently the livestock, have declined, he said.
“I think, how can I survive this way?” Balambal asked. “How can I manage my family and care for my children. I look around and see the only solution is change of livelihood.”
Along another stretch of the Dawa, where Oxfam America is working with the Liben Pastoralist Development Association, or LPDA, to build a full-scale irrigation system for 200 families, Edo Godana voiced some of the same worry.
“During our father’s time it was very nice rain and a lot of milk and grass,” he said. “Now, things have totally changed. I’ve been trying to cultivate land by rain, and it frequently collapses. We have fear for our children. What’s going on?”
It’s a question that’s weighing on countless herders and rain-dependent farmers across Ethiopia as one difficult season gives way to the next. In the face of a changing climate, Oxfam has been working with people like Balmbal and Godana on longer-term solutions to the problems erratic weather creates. Pasture restoration, road construction, and helping people build small herds of milking goats are just some of the answers.
“Drought is a part of our lives,” said Kote Ibrahim, LPDA’s director. “How can we get out from it? We’ve reached consensus. We need sustainable development interventions.”
And, added Tola, the underlying causes of poverty, which make people so susceptible to drought, must also be addressed.
“Poor people need a voice,” said Tola. “Marginalized groups, like herders, need to be included in the development policies of the country. And women need an active role in development also.”
]]>More than 6 million farmers across the country grow teff, but it’s here, in rugged Adi Ha, where rocks litter the fields like confetti, that this new kind of insurance may take root and spread. An initiative coordinated by Oxfam America and supported by more than a dozen partners, its goal is to help some of the world’s poorest farmers bounce back when drought destroys their crops. And the payout isn’t only in cash. It’s in confidence—the kind that may help propel people out of poverty.
“Without insurance, poor farmers who experience drought might run through all their savings, fall into debt, or sell their livestock and other valuables—often to ruinous results,” says Mengesha Gebremichael, the micro-insurance officer at the Relief Society of Tigray and one of the project’s managers. “In contrast, insured farmers will be more resilient to those shocks. They’ll be in a better position to take out small loans that could help them make big improvements in their next harvest—loans for things like high-yield seeds. They’ll be more confident that they can pay the money back knowing they have insurance to support them if trouble strikes.”
June to October marks the main rainy season in Adi Ha, a critical time for local farmers who depend on the skies to water their teff fields. For poor families living close to the edge, where even a $20 or $30 loss can push them over, there is no room for mishap. Without rain, they face disaster. That’s where the weather insurance comes in. If a certain amount of rain fails to fall at a certain time, farmers who have purchased the insurance can receive a payout to help cover their losses.
In Ethiopia, families have always had traditional ways of coping with extraordinary expenses. If they lose their livestock in a disaster, such as drought, those who are better off will contribute an animal or two to help them rebuild their herds, for instance. Families may also share seeds for planting, or food when it’s in terribly short supply.
But with climate change—and the erratic weather that it brings—the traditional means of surviving bad times may no longer be enough.
“Climate change is dramatically increasing agricultural risk across the planet,” says Marjorie Victor Brans, a senior policy advisor at Oxfam America. “The frequency of droughts and other shocks in Adi Ha is likely to increase, and poor farmers will be among the hardest hit. It’s a hugely challenging phenomenon.”
With 85 percent of Ethiopians employed in farming, much of it rain-fed, the need for new tools to manage the risks is huge. But the market for insurance is miniscule: only about 300,000 people in a country of nearly 80 million now have it. Extending the option to rural areas is loaded with challenges, not the least of them being the concern that poor farmers simply don’t have the money to pay for premiums—even the smallest one.
This new program has solved that problem with a simple solution: It has arranged for the poorest farmers to use their labor to buy insurance, tapping into a new social security initiative the Ethiopian government launched a few years ago. Called the Productive Safety Net Program, or PSNP, it helps about 8 million of the country’s most vulnerable residents by providing them with food or cash in exchange for work. Through the PSNP, 130 Adi Ha farmers are now working extra days on community projects, such as planting trees and grasses to promote soil and water conservation, to pay for their premiums. In this pilot year, Oxfam provided funds to the PSNP to cover this part of the project.
The option to trade labor for insurance has substantially boosted the number of farmers able to participate in the program, nearly doubling the enrollment that was expected.
“It’s good for me to have the insurance as long as I can work and pay with labor,” says Medhin Reda, a single mother who will be working 24 days for her premium. “That is the only asset I have.”
For Selas Samson Biru, who is spending 192 birr on insurance, it will help address the uncertainties that have always been part of farming, especially now that global warming may be altering familiar weather patterns.
“Our season is changing. We don’t know when there will be a bad year and when there will be a good year,” she says. “I believe, after taking the training, this insurance will be helpful during the bad season. This will pay me.”
And the insurance may be extra helpful because it was tailored specifically for farmers like Biru. In fact, she was one of five community members chosen by villagers to join the insurance design team. Twenty-one other farmers participated in a series of test workshops on climate change and financial literacy. Focus group discussions and economic risk simulations carried out in the community helped the design team understand what kind of insurance product would work best in Adi Ha. And on the day of enrollment, about 600 farmers showed up for a host of activities explaining the offerings, including musical performances, a play, peer-to-peer outreach, and financial training.
“Today is a historic day for the farmers of Adi Ha,” said Brans as the activities wound to a close that day and organizers counted the final tally of takers. Among the 200 were 75 women, which represents about 22 percent of all female-headed households in Adi Ha—one of the most vulnerable groups the project is aiming to help. On average, farmers are paying 138 birr for their premiums—or a little more than $12 each. Some chose packages that allowed them to pay as little as 76 birr, or about $6.75. The maximum premium was 288 birr, or just over $23.
“We are experimenting,” said Gebru Kahsay a few months after investing 192 birr into an insurance package. “We started with teff. If we find the insurance is good, we’ll continue. If we fail, we will take a lesson from it.”
Lots of learning has already taken place during the 18 months Oxfam and its partners spent in preparation for the launch of this project. And each of those partners has been contributing its own expertise. Besides the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST, one of the largest aid groups in Africa which has worked closely with the people of Adi Ha, other partners include the Nyala Insurance Company, an Ethiopian firm that is providing the insurance; Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurers which has helped fund the launch and is providing technical expertise; and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, which is providing research on climate data. Additionally, the Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution, or DECSI, the primary provider of loans to families in Adi Ha, helped both to design the pilot and to educate farmers about the pros and cons of insurance.
“We had to work very hard to design a risk management package that was affordable and attractive to farmers, while still being potentially profitable to the insurance industry,” says Bekabil Fufa, an agricultural expert in Oxfam America’s Horn of Africa regional office. “And we had to make it compelling to government and donors who feel it will address the threat of climate change.”
With a solid model now in place, Oxfam is planning in the coming year to expand the initiative into four new villages in Tigray--the region where Adi Ha is located—and into one village in Amhara, another drought-prone region to the south. Eventually, the project partners would like to see weather insurance offered to poor farmers throughout Ethiopia.
It will require a leap of faith by farmers across the country as well as support from the government, donors, NGOs, and the private sector,” says Gebremichael. “But given the long lead times required to build resiliency to climate change, we can’t afford to wait until tomorrow to try.”
]]>Reda, 45, is a farmer in Adi Ha, a collection of small villages in Tigray, a rocky region of northern Ethiopia. Here, rainfall is becoming increasingly unpredictable, and for the farmers who depend on its regularity to ensure their fields will produce food for their families, the change in weather patterns is deeply troubling. Without rain, the crops of hundreds of farmers in Adi Ha won’t grow.
Already this year the rains were six weeks late, coming in mid July instead of early June. That meant the corn got a late start and some farmers didn’t bother with sorghum at all. Still, hopes were high for teff, the tiny grain that is a staple for people here—and across Ethiopia where 6 million farmers grow the nutrient-rich cereal. Reda is one of them.
But this year, she and 199 other small farmers in Adi Ha weren’t taking any chances. When Oxfam and its partners suggested a way to buffer the hardships Mother Nature might bring, the farmers embraced it—even if few had ever heard of such a thing. The proposal? Weather insurance designed for their teff. If the rain failed to fall in certain amounts at certain times, farmers who bought the insurance would receive a payout to cover some of their losses. The insurance is being offered by the Nyala Insurance Company and Swiss Re. Other organizations partnering on the project include the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST; the Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution, or DESCI; and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University.
“Because of repeated drought, which really affected me, I joined the insurance with the understanding it might solve my problems,” said Reda.
For a long time, most people in the insurance business thought that poor farmers, like many of those in Adi Ha, were uninsurable. Where would they get the cash to buy the insurance? This pilot program has answered that with a simple, and ingenious, solution. Reda is paying for her premium—like she does for other important things in her life—with her labor.
Reda, along with 65 percent of all those who have signed up for the insurance, is a participant in Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program, an initiative that provides cash and food for some of the country’s poorest people in exchange for their work on community improvements. She’ll work 24 extra days this year on projects that benefit Adi Ha—such as planting trees and grasses to promote soil and water conservation—to cover the cost of her premium.
“It’s good for me to have the insurance as long as I can work and pay with labor,” says Reda. “That is the only asset I have.”
A single mother and head of an all-girl household at the moment—she lives with three of her daughters; a fourth daughter lives in a nearby town; and a son is away studying—Reda works hard to keep together all the pieces of a difficult life. With one of her daughters, Abbadit Girmay, who is now 19, Reda hauled to their hillside site every stone of the hut they now live in. And to build it, she hired a mason to mortar the rocks together—paying him with a summer’s worth of weeding in his fields.
To get her own fields plowed—she has two, totaling a half hectare of land--Reda hires herself out each planting season, working three full days for the man who owns the oxen, in exchange for one day of his plowing.
Work is Reda’s currency.
"That’s why I’m thin," she says, with a wry smile.
In the corn patch just below her house, Reda stands bent at the waist , her hands flying over the weeds as she yanks and clumps them swiftly into small piles. Close behind, and weeding nearly as fast, Tekleweini Girmay, 7, follows her mother through the stalks. Reda—and necessity—have taught her well.
But a farmer’s life is not what Reda envisions for her youngest child—or any of her daughters. She wants them to have what she never had: an education.
“The season is not good enough for agriculture. Our soil has become poor and they need fertilizer,” she says. “I don’t want my children to be farmers. Those who have started their education I want them to continue and have jobs. And those who haven’t started, I want them to start.” Tekleweini will be among those newly enrolled when the next session of school begins.
And Reda will be, too.
She has signed up for an adult literacy program that REST is offering.
And though Reda can’t read, her mind is filled with news of the world beyond Adi Ha that she absorbs from a small radio she keeps tucked on a shelf in her hut. Voice of America in Tigrinya and Dmitsi Woyane or the voice of the ruling party are among her favorite stations. Sometimes, Reda will stay up until 11 p.m. listening—when there are working batteries, that is. They are expensive, about 10 birr each, or about most of what she would earn for a day’s labor.
There’s no electricity in this stone-walled compound, and few creature comforts. At night, light in Reda’s cramped hut comes from a hanging bulb hooked to a flashlight battery. She also has two small oil lamps. Household wares hang from the ceiling beamed with logs and storage vessels stand in the shadows in the corners. Two mud seats built into the walls near the door serve as beds.
In early August, green washes the hills that stretch below Reda’s hut, a sign that the rain—now that it has finally come—is ample enough for the moment. Her corn is doing well, she says with satisfaction.
And her teff?
The seeds have been in the ground for just a week and years of experience have left her circumspect.
“It’s too early to say if it’s good or bad,” says Reda.
]]>In a pilot program coordinated by Oxfam America along with a host of local partners, these farmers have bought weather insurance designed for their teff, a staple grain here and across Ethiopia. If a certain amount of rain fails to fall at a certain time—and their teff does poorly—the insurance will cover some of their losses. Partners in the initiative include the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST; the Nyala Insurance Company; Swiss Re; the Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution, or DECSI; and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University.
The rain gauges, like the one in Biru’s yard, measure the precipitation in different spots across Adi Ha where rainfall is becoming increasingly unpredictable, making it ever harder for farmers to eke a living from this rocky part of the world.
“Our season is changing. We don’t know when there will be a bad year and when there will be a good year,” says Biru. “I believe, after taking the training, this insurance will be helpful during the bad season. This will pay me.”
Biru, who has bought 192 birr—or about $15—worth of insurance has become an expert at managing the vicissitudes of life in Adi Ha and together with her husband and six children, they have built a measure of security for themselves.
Now 48, Biru was married at 15. But unlike some of her peers at the time, she had managed to attend school through the fourth grade, and when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, took control of the area, Biru stood out. Perhaps it was because of all the questions she asked, she says.
She joined the organization in about 1979 and soon assumed a leadership role among other women—a twist of fate that allowed her to develop the confidence that continues to feed her successes today. Biru is not afraid to try new things—including insurance, a concept few in her community knew much about before this pilot was launched. Biru became a member of the local team that helped design the project.
But before that, she had other experiences that allowed her to see the advantages of managing household money in different ways. Through a local microfinance institution, Biru has taken out a series of loans that have helped her to build a herd of livestock that now includes goats, oxen, and donkeys. She has used the proceeds from the sale of some of those goats to support two of her children as they make their way through university.
Income from the goats, which at one point numbered about 70, also helped the family finance the construction of a new house with a metal roof a few years ago. It consists of a long, rectangular room with perimeter seats built into the walls, two beds at the far end, and a high ceiling that helps the interior stay cool on hot days.
And though the hungry season is inching closer—the time before the harvests when the food supply of many families runs low—Biru still has a supply a grain. In a shed separate from her house, tall vessels stand against the back wall. As she uncorks the bottom of one of them, the grain makes a satisfying rush as it streams out Baskets on the floor brim with corn, finger millet, and teff.
Biru’s family has another source of bounty as well: the Tsalet River, which feeds an irrigation system constructed about 10 years ago by the Relief Society of Tigray with funding from Oxfam. More than 400 households now benefit from it. Water funneled through a series of channels connected to a dam across the river irrigates a quarter hectare of land from which Biru harvests green peppers, bananas, melons, guava, and coffee beans. That regular supply of water may free her from some of the worry about rain.
But the irrigation system doesn’t water her teff. Across Adi Ha, farmers depend on the rainy season for that job. The main one, the kiremt, stretches from June into September. A shorter rainy season, the belg, runs from February to May. This year, the kiremt started late: the rain didn’t really begin to fall in substantial amounts until mid July, making it hard for farmers who plant sorghum and corn.
“For maize, the rain is not good. There was no rain early,” says Biru.
With her rain gauge, Biru keeps careful count of exactly how much rain falls, recording the precipitation on a small chart. Pulling it out to show some visitors one day in early August, she notes the range from half a millimeter the day before—barely a sprinkle—to 40 millimeters in a downpour on July 3.
Her crops aren’t the only thing Biru worries about when it comes to water. Her family also needs a steady supply for drinking and cooking. And often, the job of fetching it falls to her. Potable water is about an hour’s walk away, and someone in the household makes that trip once a day, sometimes with a donkey to haul the heavy load home. But a less reliable source that the family uses just for cooking, is a good deal closer—a 15-minute hike from Biru’s home.
Grabbing a jug, Biru heads down the path from her house, slowing her pace so the city slickers who are visiting can keep up. She’s going to show them what’s required to keep a family hydrated in Adi Ha, where there’s no municipal system pumping water through every household tap.
The walk includes a scramble down a steep ledge—and the knowledge of a return hike up, lugging the jug heavy with water. On the way, Biru stops at a mound of stones, bending to kiss one reverentially: below them, in an oasis of trees and thick bushes—one of the few forest-like spots still standing in the area—sits a local church. Tradition demands that the woods around the church be left alone. They’re sacred. And that may account for the small spring that still gurgles at their base.
It’s here that Biru stops to fill her jug, scooping cupfuls of water from the shallows while trying to leave the silt behind. Ten minutes later, she stands and heads home under a gray sky full of the promise of rain.
Will it be ample enough to guarantee a harvest?
“For teff, currently it’s good,” says Biru. But if it doesn’t last, she now has insurance to fall back on.
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