Donate online now or call 1850 30 40 55 (Ireland) / 0800 0 30 40 55 (N. Ireland)
People across East Africa are facing increasingly frequent and severe droughts in areas with already limited access to water and sanitation, education and healthcare.
While rain has finally come to parts of Tanzania, there is still drought in large parts of the country – and elsewhere in East Africa. The big problem in Tanzania and other countries in the region is that the extended drought has destroyed subsistence farming – the main source of food and income for many families there. Food prices are soaring. Hardly anyone can afford even the basics.
Soaring food prices are wrecking lives
One in ten families have lost all their animals. People are so desperate that they are selling their few remaining cattle for as little as €4/£3 each – normal price €200/£150 – and it brings them just enough money to buy a family five days’ supply of maize. After that they have nothing.
It’s not yet too late to make a difference.
With your help, we can keep people fed until the harvest. Make a donation today.
As well as food shortages, communities are critically short of water. Wells have dried up, animals are getting weaker and malnutrition is rising. The cost of water is also rising – with a jerry can of water now costing up to three times its normal price.
Oxfam’s response
Oxfam is responding to the current crisis with animal health projects, cash for work, public health interventions, sanitation and water trucking, and lobbying and advocacy.
Oxfam Ireland is currently focusing its response in Tanzania and Uganda, where our partners are already at work to help mitigate the emergency. We are giving cash-for-food vouchers to the poorest families who have lost their livestock to drought and can’t afford food for even one meal a day.
Tanzania
Monica Gorman, Country Programme Manager Oxfam Ireland surveys the drought affected landscape of northern Tanzania, east of Moshi. The previous week the rains had fallen for the first time in nine months.
Three years of below average rainfall have led to the deterioration of pasture and particularly affected pastoralist communities in northern regions such as Arusha, Ngorongoro and Kilimanjaro. We are working with local pastoralist groups and local organisations to provide food and cash for work: the poor state of livestock means families have decreasing incomes, yet food prices are above the 5-year average. Our country team in Tanzania also supports development projects to reduce communities’ vulnerability to the increasing droughts in the long-term.
Uganda
Oxfam provides water, sanitation and livelihoods support to returnees in Kitgum. Our response to the food crisis is focusing on cash provision and microfinance, and supporting agricultural production through improving access to seeds for the coming rainy season. In Karamoja, we also work with pastoralists on animal health and grain banking programmes. We are also lobbying and supporting local authorities to improve drought mitigation planning.
