Oxfam's work in Eritrea in depth

Oxfam first started work in Eritrea in 1983 during a severe drought. Oxfam distributed food to thousands of starving people and provided clean drinking and washing water. In 1993 Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia and since then we have supported the government in its move towards self-reliance.

Around two thirds of Eritrea’s 3.8 million inhabitants currently live under the poverty line, while 37 per cent struggle to find enough food to feed their families. Oxfam’s work in the country focuses on providing public health and livelihoods support to help people address regular droughts, and ensure they are able to produce enough food to support themselves. We also empower women economically and support people living with HIV and AIDS. All of our programmes seek to build the capacity and standing of women within their communities. Currently 270,000 people (seven per cent of Eritrea's population; 60 per cent of whom are female) are directly benefiting from our programmes.

Public health

Our public health programme covers around 50 villages in two of Eritrea’s six zones or regions. The programme’s focus is on constructing and rehabilitating water supply systems such as boreholes, hand pump wells, solar powered systems, rain harvesting facilities, dams and ponds. This is complemented with hygiene promotion and basic sanitation work.

In 2007-8 our public health achievements included:

• Constructing 57 water supply systems
• Creating 43 special WASH committees whose members were trained and provided with support to promote household and personal hygiene within their communities. Women make up around 35 per cent of the committees’ membership
• Carrying out more than 100 water quality tests which revealed significant improvements in the quality of water provided
• Contributing to the development of a National Sanitation Policy for Eritrea

Livelihoods

Oxfam’s livelihoods programme covers 26 villages in two zones. Our focus is primarily on ensuring the availability and accessibility of food supplies to vulnerable families. This work includes providing agricultural inputs, constructing small-scale irrigation facilities, protecting the environment, assisting farmers to diversify their income sources, providing veterinary support, training farmers and strengthening extension services.

In 2007-8 our public health achievements included:

• Running six small-scale irrigation schemes, more than half of whose members were female, and introducing vegetable production
• Providing agricultural training to 473 farmers
• Distributing 250 tons of crop and vegetable seeds, 30,000 forestry seedlings and 3,500 small livestock to 20,000 farmers. Our evaluations show that this programme increased farmers’ productivity by 12 per cent per hectare
• Carrying out a vaccination programme for 500,000 small livestock
• Distributing new improved and more efficient stoves to 523 households

 

Last updated: July 2009