In the wider area of the Greater Horn of Africa (GHoA), the increase in climate change-related disasters, combined with poverty, instability, and conflicts, has not only caused an unspecified number of deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, but has also resulted in the region now concentrating 22% of the world’s humanitarian needs. Nearly 50 million people are in conditions of acute food insecurity (IPC3+), including at least 10.8 million children under the age of 5, a number that is expected to rise further. According to the 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI), the situation in Somalia is extremely alarming, while in Ethiopia and Kenya it is serious. In this context, the risk of epidemics is increasing, especially in flooded areas where potable water is not only scarce but also contaminated.
Moreover, the dramatic situation has raised the number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes Region to 23 million, with the highest numbers in Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, and Somalia. Climate change affects the most vulnerable people who have contributed the least to accelerating the crisis, and together with other destabilising factors, such as competition for resources and conflicts, increases social and economic fragility, forcing millions of people to abandon their lands and homes. CESVI operates in Ethiopia to provide communities with the means and knowledge to prepare for and withstand these increasingly frequent and massive climate shocks, also aiming to break the cycle of hunger and malnutrition.
In Ethiopia, over 21 million people need aid, including almost 16 million due to food insecurity, and the UN estimates that 2.4 million children under 5 years old and 1.3 million pregnant or lactating women require treatment for acute malnutrition. In a country where 91% of the population lives in rural areas and the most common means of subsistence is pastoralism, since 2021 the most severe drought in recent history has led to five consecutive rainy seasons with almost no precipitation.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, and recovery will take between 5 and 8 years for those who have lost everything, such as the agro-pastoral communities. In the Borena area of Oromia, one of the most affected by the lack of water, CESVI has been active since 2021. The pastoralist communities in the area have seen their lives upended in recent years: 80% of the livestock, which previously provided food and sustenance to the population, has now disappeared due to the almost total absence of water, and today the residents’ existence is centred around searching for and collecting water. For these communities, pastoralism is much more than an economic resource; it is their identity, their past, their future. They are highly skilled at living in arid conditions, but today there is no water anywhere, not in ponds or deep wells. The communities now have nothing left, and their dignity has been crushed. Here, CESVI, with the support of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, is engaged in supporting the population through multi-purpose cash assistance projects, rehabilitation and restoration of water collection basins, preparation of pasture lands, as well as peacebuilding activities to help communities share resources in a spirit of mutual assistance.
The consequences of the climate crisis are critically evident in other countries of the Horn of Africa as well. In Somalia, droughts and floods alternate, bringing the country to the brink of famine, forcing 1.5 million people from their homes since 2021, killing thousands of animals, and raising the number of displaced persons to over 2.6 million. In 2023, the rains brought water but also devastating floods, affecting 2 million inhabitants and pushing over 750,000 to move. The level of malnutrition in Somalia is extremely severe, roads have been cut off, villages isolated, schools and hospitals closed, and the risk of disease has increased. CESVI operates in the country through health projects with health centres and mobile clinics where malnutrition is prevented and treated.
In Kenya, recently marked by heavy rains and consequent flooding, at least 267 people have died, 280,000 have been displaced, and 380,000 have been affected. The floods have killed tens of thousands of animals and destroyed cultivated fields, businesses, infrastructure, and water sources.
