IOM has launched a nine-month programme to mitigate the impact of
recurring droughts, food shortages and irregular migration on
vulnerable communities living in Ethiopia's north-western Oromia
zone of Amhara National Regional State.

This Japanese-funded programme will provide some 500 vulnerable
families, including female-headed households, with goats, sheep and
poultry to help them supplement their diet and provide additional
income.

As part of this initiative, IOM has also teamed up with a
leading local NGO, the Organization for Rehabilitation and
Development in Amhara (ORDA), to provide young people with
sustainable agricultural skills training and basic business
management to help them set up self-employment schemes by
establishing farms using with modern farming
skills.   

This support will be extended to other community members living
in neighbouring administrative units, or Kebeles, through the
setting-up of revolving funds that will be managed and monitored by
self-help groups, local authorities and community leaders.

"These initiatives are crucial to boost the resilience of
families who live in vulnerable rural communities and who often
have little choice but to engage in irregular migration because of
adverse climatic conditions," says Tagel Solomon, IOM's
Counter-Trafficking officer in Ethiopia.

This programme builds on IOM's weekly radio shows, drama and
plays designed to encourage villagers to find sustainable
livelihood alternatives to irregular migration and to inform
communities of the dangers of human
trafficking.   

Every year, thousands of young people from drought-affected
areas engage in perilous journeys across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen
and beyond, while others are smuggled to Tanzania via Kenya en
route to South Africa, Europe and increasingly, to South and
Central America.     

This area, bordering on the highlands, has experienced
successive failures of the Belg (short rains ending in May) and
Meher (long rains which start in late July) in the past few years,
resulting in low crop yields in some parts and near-crop failure in
others.

The Ethiopian government and its humanitarian partners issued an
update on 14 October, seeking emergency aid for an estimated 6.4
million people across the country.

This initiative is part of a broader regional project
implemented in Kenya, Somaliland, Puntland, Yemen and Ethiopia,
which is funded through the Tokyo International Conference on
African Development (TICAD)

For additional information please contact:

Liyunet Demsis

IOM Addis

Tel: +251115511673

E-mail: "mailto:dliyunet@iom.int">dliyunet@iom.int