Background

INTRODUCTION

Drought, conflict, and profound poverty plague many of the people living in the Horn of Africa region. Job opportunities are limited. HIV/AIDS is taking a toll on those who can find work. And rapid population growth is putting a severe strain on the region's natural resources.

For too many families in the Horn of Africa region, poverty is a daily fact of life. They do not have access to adequate health services, education, clean water, or housing. They face hunger and chronic food shortages. And fluctuations in weather patterns and international markets constantly threaten their national economies, which depend largely on single agricultural products such as coffee in Sudan.

In Ethiopia, where Oxfam America has concentrated its work, 85 percent of the people are farmers or herders who rely on the land for their livelihoods. Average farms are small—about 2.45 acres—and land is in short supply. Agricultural production is lower than it was 25 years ago: deforestation, overgrazing, and poor land management have degraded the soil.

Although more than 20 years have passed since the 1984 famine that devastated the lives of some five million Ethiopians, many rural areas are just as poor as they were two decades ago. The country has seen some economic growth since the end of the civil war in 1991, but military clashes, low coffee export prices, and recurrent droughts continue to burden this nation of farm families.

In Sudan, a conflict that erupted in early 2003 in the western region of Darfur has forced more than 2 million people from their homes, killed countless others, and destroyed hundreds of villages. When peace comes—and progress toward that goal has been halting at best--the recovery from such devastation will take years.