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East Africa food crisis

Oxfam has reached more than 2.8 million people in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia with emergency support after a major food crisis was declared in mid-2011.

Despite significant improvements in parts of the region, millions of people continue to need support to recover.

Food Crisis in the Horn of Africa: Progress Report, July 2011-2012

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Updates from Oxfam

Latest blogs

Dadaab: One year after the famine - 13 July 2012

One year on from the East Africa food crisis, much progress and many lessons - 5 July 2012

Water brings new hope as Wajir tries to recover from drought - 5 July 2012

The Situation

Rains failed in 2010 and 2011, pushing up food prices and causing millions of small farmers and nomads to lose their livelihoods.13 million people across the Horn of Africa were affected by desperate food and water shortages.Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died - mainly in Somalia, where the first famine of the 21st century was announced.

Food Crisis in the Horn of Africa: Progress Report, July 2011-2012

What Oxfam is doing

We have reached more than 2.8 million people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya with safe water, sanitation, cash and other support.

Learn more about our emergency work in: 

Ethiopia | Kenya | Somalia


Video: All hands to the pump in Ethiopia

Video: All hands to the pump in Ethiopia

Photo gallery

Snapshot of the East Africa food crisis

Photo 1/10 photo by: Kieran Doherty

Kenya: The pastoralist communities of Turkana experienced the longest period of drought in their history in mid-2011. Many livestock died and families struggled to feed themselves. Here, Helen Ewoton collects water from an Oxfam borehole.

  • Kenya: The pastoralist communities of Turkana experienced the longest period of drought in their history in mid-2011. Many livestock died and families struggled to feed themselves. Here, Helen Ewoton collects water from an Oxfam borehole.
  • Kenya: In Pokotom, western Turkana, Oxfam is supporting 100 households through a cash-for-work project to clear and prepare land for planting. Whilst the participants work they receive 3,000 Kenya shillings (approx £22) per month for four months.
  • Hawa Abdulayi is from Hindeysa, a remote community in Ethiopia’s Somali region. Households run by women tend to be poorer and have fewer animals meaning that drought can hit them especially hard. “I only had 20 sheep and goats, and [the drought] has killed ten,” she explains. Oxfam has been building a borehole to bring Hawa’s community a reliable source of water.
  • Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya: Oxfam health workers prepare to distribute 7,000 jerry cans and bars of soap to newly arrived refugees from Somalia. The camp is severely overcrowded and clean water is scarce. Without sanitised jerry cans to store water, it can quickly become contaminated and risk spreading disease.
  • Somalia: Oxfam partner Hijra has been providing safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, and public health advice, to over one hundred thousand people living in makeshift camps. Part of this involves setting up street signs promoting good hygiene practice.
  • Villagers gather at the Oxfam water collection point in Kachoda, in Kenya’s northern Turkana region. Oxfam is providing communities with a supply of clean water by constructing and repairing dozens of boreholes and wells. We’re also working with nomadic pastoralist communities whose livelihoods have been destroyed to help find new ways of making a living.
  • Somalia: Oxfam is also working with local partner SAACID to run the single largest nutrition programme in South Central Somalia, every month treating more than 12,000 severely malnourished children (like Mohamed, pictured) and pregnant and lactating mothers in Mogadishu.

Other ways to help

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