Healthy mothers, healthy children, making healthy communities in Ethiopia

Dugem, Tigray REGION, Ethiopia, 21 December 2017 – In the health post at Dugem village, in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, Berhan Zebraruk, 25, gently strokes her child’s cheek and then gives him a sweet tickle on the tummy. Her first born, Awot Kaleab, is quick to respond to her touch. He cracks a beautiful smile displaying his toothless gums and looks his mother right in the eye for the play to continue. The little boy is restless. He grabs his mother’s cell phone and when that is taken away from him, he turns his attention to the baby next to him.

“My boy likes to play with everything he holds,” says Berhan. “I have to keep an eye on him, otherwise he put things in his mouth.”

Awot is now 9-months-old and it is time for his measles vaccination, which would complete his set of basic vaccinations for children under the age of 1, as recommended by WHO and the Ethiopia National Expanded Program on Immunization.

It is a special day for Berhan. Shortly after Awot received the vaccine, the health extension worker, Genet Desta, registered his name in the vaccine book. Then she called out Berhan’s name and handed her a certificate, a recognition that is given to mothers when their children complete taking the necessary vaccines.

Berhan is applauded by the other mothers in the health post for successfully vaccinating her child. She is also recognized as a role model for her best child feeding practices, including exclusively breastfeeding her son for his first six months.

Berhan attended school up to grade 10. Since she was a little girl, her dream was to become a doctor. Instead, she got married and became a housewife like many other women in her village. Yet, her education is considered an achievement in the eyes of fellow villagers.

“I wanted to become a doctor because I saw health workers treating people in my village,” says Berhan. “That wasn’t meant to happen for me, maybe it will for my son,” she added, gazing down at him.

Berhan understands that her child can only fulfil her unrealized dream if he grows up healthy and well. When she knew that she was pregnant with him, she started her pregnancy follow-up relatively earlier than other mothers.

‘’Berhan attended all of the four antenatal follow-ups and took the iron supplement properly,” says Genet, the health worker. “She was very conscious of her health and that’s why her child is very healthy.”

In Ethiopia, an increasing number of women are receiving care by skilled health workers both during pregnancy and childbirth. In the Tigray region, where Berhan lives, for instance, 90 percent of women receive antenatal care by skilled attendants, at least once, during their pregnancy, which is well over the national average of 62.4 percent.

In addition, 59 percent of the region’s mothers are giving birth in health facilities, instead of the old tradition of home delivery.

The country has seen significant improvement in immunization coverage over the past two decades. In 2000, it was only 14 per cent of Ethiopia’s children under the age of 2 who have received all the basic vaccinations, but in 2016, that number soared to almost 40 per cent.

Owing to its well-established community-based health service provision, Ethiopia is also enjoying a reduction in maternal and child deaths. Maternal mortality which was 871 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 has dropped to only 412 in 2016, a reduction by more than half in just 16 years. The same is also true when it comes to child mortality. More children in rural Ethiopia are celebrating their fifth birthday than ever before.

The nearly 40,000 female health workers, together with the women of the Health Development Army, easily access women and children in every household and provide much needed advice and services, including immunization to prevent the most debilitating child illnesses.

UNICEF is supporting the different components of the programme by providing both financial and technical assistance. UNICEF also supports the management of common childhood illnesses including malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea and severe acute malnutrition at the health post level, contributing to a significant reduction in deaths.

Berhan’s task as a mother, caring and nurturing for Awot, symbolizes the bright future that lies ahead of children in rural Ethiopia. She is well equipped with skills and knowledge that will enable her to provide critical health and nutritional care for her son. Further help is also available since services, even for those in remote communities, are now more accessible.

What it takes to truly educate a girl in Ethiopia – An entire system investing in quality education

By Amanda Westfall

Filmawit Layn, a ten-year-old girl at Addishihu Primary School in the Emba Alaje Woreda (District), Tigray Region is the type of student and daughter most parents dream of – smart, beautiful, and extremely confident.

EMBA ALAJE WOREDA, TIGRAY, 01 December 2017 – Filmawit Layn is from rural Ethiopia and attends public school, where although school structures and teachers are in place, the quality of teaching has been notably weak. In Ethiopia, less than half of all primary school students are passing their end-of-year exams, and only 4 per cent of Grade 2 students can proficiently read (NAEA 2016 and EGRA 2014).

These statistics raise concerns if children – like Filmawit – are actually learning at school and developing skills that will help them reach their full potentials, realize their dreams, and lead their country one day.

“…if children – like Filmawit -are developing skills that will help them reach their full potentials, realize their dreams and lead their country one day.”

To address these concerns, UNICEF and the Government introduced the Assessment for Learning (AfL) initiative – where teachers are equipped with skills, resources and a supporting environment to shift their teaching approaches to become more active, continuous, competency-based, and engaging for students, with the ultimate goal of improving learning outcomes.

Through UNICEF-designed capacity building workshops, teachers are learning how to collect real-time information on their students’ learning levels. This way teaching is better informed, lesson planning is better prepared, and wider support is given to children.

“Teachers are shifting their teaching approaches to become more active, continuous, competency-based, and engaging for students.”

Filmawit lives with her grandmother, Belaynesh Mengiste, who fortunately understands the value of education. Belaynesh was just in 4th grade, when she had to leave school to fight in the terrible civil war against the former Derg Regime, putting an end to her childhood education. Thus, she does not want the same thing to happen for her granddaughter. While most parents require their children to help out with livelihood chores (farming, caring for livestock, collecting water), Belaynesh instead decided to enroll Filmawit in extra language classes. Balaynesh’s goal is for Filmawit to score high grades on her final primary exam so that when she reaches 8th grade, she could be accepted in the elite Kalamino Secondary School in Mekele where the smartest children in Tigray go to.

Filmawit and her grandmother / caretaker Belaynesh Mengiste ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2017/Amanda Westfall

Committed community leaders bring quality education to girls

It takes not only teachers, but an entire community to bring quality education to girls like Filmawit.

With AfL, parents and caretakers – like  Filmawit’s Grandmother, Belaynesh Mengstie – have begun to play a more active role in the learning process of their children. Before AfL, most parents hardly knew what was happening at school. Since the implementation of AfL, many schools have now started a tri-partite agreement among the student, teacher, and caretaker, where they agree on goals for the year – per subject – and review where they stand on a monthly basis.

Filmawit is lucky to have such an inspiring 4th Grade homeroom teacher. Etenesh Mulugeta is the focal point for AfL at the school. The UNICEF AfL training is normally provided to each school’s director and one or two teachers, and Etenesh was one of the beneficiaries of the training. “I am so happy to have been part of this important training and will train others. It makes life so much easier!” said Etenesh. She trained all teachers in the school, along with other teachers in the region (a total of 135 teachers). She sees vast improvements in learning because of the new techniques, mainly regarding reading and writing, where she measures levels of all of her 57 students on a monthly basis. This approach encouraged her to develop new innovative ways to fill the learning gaps, for example, by establishing peer groups in children’s neighbourhoods so they can support each other after school.

Mesele Gebre Ezgiabher, the school director, was also trained by UNICEF in AfL. Before AfL, the standard practice of teachers was to automatically give a pass grade for everyone even if they cannot read or write. Now Mesele is taking exams very seriously. “First, we must ensure that teachers base teaching on minimum learning competencies (MLCs) and with the AfL methodology. Second, promotion must be based on achievement that is linked to MLCs and students should not just automatically pass to the next grade.”

In Filmawit’s woreda where 57 primary schools are present, Tadele Berhe Woldu serves as the woreda coordinator for curriculum development. He explained that before AfL, when the schools reported on end-of-year exams, most schools gave students passing marks of 100 per cent. However, when the woreda administered the exams, the average was actually 56.8 per cent who passed for Grades 1-4. This happened because the schools used to be rewarded if all students passed, which resulted in teachers preparing simple exams to ensure that all the children passed. Now, the woreda sends experts to check the exams before they are administered, to ensure they reflect the MLCs. “We knew the schools were cheating when all of them reported a 100 per cent passing rate. This is not good for our nation … In the end the children will not have the skills to get jobs. But now, this problem is totally changing,” said Tadele.

The Government has set a goal to create a new learning generation for the country. But real learning can only be achieved if a system of teachers, school administrators, and government invest in strategies to improve the quality of teaching; if teachers are qualified, given appropriate learning materials, and taught clear methodologies to educate students. And teachers can only provide quality support if they have a system assisting them at the collegiate, woreda, regional and national levels.

AfL fits within existing educational structures, and has the utmost involvement by parents and caretakers, making it more sustainable and long-lasting. It was introduced in Ethiopia in mid-2013 and has since expanded to eight regions (includes the six regions of Amhara, Harari, Oromia, Somali, Tigray, and Benishangul-Gumuz, as well as the city-states of Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa), with the plan to incorporate it in all eleven regions of the country.

With AfL an entire system is working together to help Filmawit realize her dreams to become an engineer so she can build a better future for her country, and even more so, to become a great leader in Africa.

Markets and Menstruation

Women sell local products in Wukro market, Tigray region. ©UNICEF/2016/Carazo

By Blanca Carazo

WUKRO, TIGRAY, 6 December 2016 – It was Monday morning when we came across the bustling market in Wukro. Tomatoes, onions and cereals are weighed and sold by women sitting on the ground, many of them wearing traditional white shawls.

Crossing through the market stalls, we entered a small office, which operates as a factory and shop as well. Helen Hailu’s open smile welcomed us to this all-in-one space where she and two other women have launched an innovative and ecological business: they produce and sell reusable sanitary pads.

In Ethiopia, as in most countries, menstruation remains a taboo topic, often causing girls and women to be excluded from school and other activities. In Wukro town, this is changing. An integrated water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) intervention being implemented by UNICEF, through its partner, World Vision, is raising awareness about menstrual hygiene among teachers, girls and boys in schools. The programme also promotes businesses such as Helen’s, to ensure that adequate and affordable products are available in the local market.

Helen and Meaza Gebregzabher proudly explained how they were chosen by a women’s association and trained by World Vision to produce reusable sanitary pads before receiving sewing machines and materials. They decided to call their business Raig, the Tigrigna word for ‘vision’.

Starting a business is always challenging, and this business is no exception. “It’s difficult right now to get money,” said Meaza, “some of the materials are bought in Addis Ababa and are expensive. We’re expecting you to raise awareness.” she added, kindly pressuring us, the visiting colleagues from UNICEF and World Vision. Perhaps business will pick up once the urban WASH water scheme is fully functional later this year, allowing easier access for women to clean the reusable pads. Also implemented by World Vision, the UNICEF-funded, Government of Ethiopia-designed programme will provide 100 per cent water coverage in Wukro and five satellite villages.

An agreement has been signed between Raig and seven schools to provide 600 pads, and they aim to also sell to local women. “They are for schools, but also for the people in the village,” said Helen.

Meaza Gebregzeir shows the materials and the three-unit set they sell, while Helen Hailu sews a new product. ©UNICEF/2016/Carazo

I buy a packet of three reusable sanitary pads for 30 birr (US$1.30) and I’m offered a free sachet of detergent. “It’s a promotion.” explains Meaza. They have to compete with commercial one-time-use pads that are sold at 20 to 30 birr for a packet of ten.

Helen and Meaza’s raig is that girls and women in Wukro use their ecological, effective and handmade sanitary pads while they’re menstruating; with the added benefit of ensuring business for the women.

UNICEF’s raig is that all girls and women have the knowledge, environment and materials they need to have dignity and safety when menstruating. Promoting income-generating activities like this not only contributes to that aim, but it also offers sustainable opportunities for brave women like Helen and Meaza.

Government of Ethiopia and Humanitarian Partners Release 2017 Humanitarian Response Planning Document

ADDIS ABABA, 11 January 2016 – The Government of Ethiopia has released the Joint Government and Partners’ Humanitarian Document, an initial humanitarian response planning document for 2017 while the comprehensive Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD) is being finalized. Based on the early warning data and modelling undertaken by partners such as UNICEF, the document reflects the joint humanitarian response planning and provides a shared understanding of the crisis, including the most pressing humanitarian needs.

While Ethiopia battles residual needs from the El Niño-induced drought, below average rains in the southern and eastern parts of the country caused by the negative Indian Ocean Dipole, another climatic phenomena, have led to new symptoms of drought. It is anticipated that 5.6 million people will need emergency food assistance in 2017, in addition to those still suffering from effects of El Niño. Ongoing assessments for the HRD will provide total figures of those in need for 2017.

In 2016, international donors contributed US$894 million toward the humanitarian response efforts and from that figure, UNICEF raised US$108.7 million to support the Government of Ethiopia and partners to reach around seven million people with access to health and nutrition care, education, safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, and protection support. At least 73 per cent of those reached were children.

The total anticipated financial requirements for the 2017 HRD is US$1.1 billion, of which, the UNICEF Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) appeal for Ethiopia is US$110.5 million. This includes US$13.6 million to respond to the new influx of South Sudanese refugees in the Gambella region. While the funding will be critical to UNICEF’s ability to respond to immediate needs, it will also be used to take appropriate actions to strengthen preparedness, improve early warning systems and reduce vulnerability, contributing to more resilient communities.

Immediate responses have already taken shape from regional governments allocating funds to water trucking and fodder provision in the south and south eastern regions, those most affected by the below average rainfall. In 2016 and years prior, UNICEF has supported such emergency interventions, in addition to child health and nutrition, sustainable water and sanitation, quality education for boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence and exploitation. UNICEF Ethiopia looks forward to continuing this support with the Government of Ethiopia and partners in 2017, for every child and their family.

Ethiopia: Vital events registration launched

By Nikodimos Alemayehu and Marie Angeline Aquino

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia. August 2016 – Ethiopia launched throughout the country on 4 August 2016 a permanent, compulsory and universal registration and certification of vital events such as birth, death, marriage and divorce.

(L-R) Ms. Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia , H.E Ms Elsa Tesfaye, Director General of Vital Events Registration Agency (VERA), H.E Dr Mulatu Teshome, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and H.E Mr Getachew Ambaye, Attorney General holds a symbolic certificate for birth registration. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

The inauguration ceremony took place in the presence of the Ethiopian President Dr Mulatu Teshome, UNICEF Representative Gillian Mellsop as well as representatives of other ministries and development partners.

“The Government of Ethiopia has given great emphasis to vital events registration across the country by putting the appropriate policies in place, establishing a system up to the lowest administrative level and deploying massive resources in this endeavor,” said Teshome at the ceremony. “I am confident that, with the collaboration and commitment of all stakeholders, we will succeed in the operationalization of the system, just like we have succeeded in other development sectors in the country.”

Mellsop underscored in her address the importance of the registry in protecting children and combatting child trafficking.

‘’With no proof of age and identity, Ethiopian children become a more attractive ‘commodity’ to a child trafficker, and will not even have the minimal protection that a birth certificate provides against early marriage, child labour, or detention and prosecution of the child as an adult.”

Ethiopia ranks among the lowest in sub-Saharan countries on birth registration with less than 10 per cent of children under the age of 5 with their births registered.

The issue is especially urgent because 48 per cent of the 92 million-strong population is under the age of 18 – 90 per cent of whom are unregistered. The Government has committed itself to reaching at least 50 per cent of children with registration and certification services over the next two years.

UNICEF’s support to Ethiopia’s national civil registration is based on a recognition that birth registration is an important element of ensuring the rights and protection of children.

For children, being registered at birth is key to other rights such as access to basic social services, protection, nationality and later the full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote. Moreover, not only is vital events registration essential for compiling statistics that are required to develop policies and implement social services, it is also, as Mellsop points out, “a pre-requisite in measuring equity; for monitoring trends such as child mortality, maternal health and gender equality.”

One-month child Samrawit at a birth registration centre in Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR) capital Hawassa August 6, 2016. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

UNICEF has supported the Government in putting in place a decentralized registration and certification system, which is informed by a legislative framework promulgated in August 2012.

UNICEF is a catalyst in creating this new system with support that includes the reform of the legislative framework, the development of a national strategy and its implementation across the country.

An important element of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system is its interoperability with the health sector. On this aspect, UNICEF has worked in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Health in its efforts to formalize the interoperability, culminating in the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two ministries.

The important of involving the Health Ministry is because it already has its own well organized and decentralized network stretching across the country. This arrangement allows the health facilities found in nearly every community to manage notifications of births and deaths.

The actual registration and certification of all vital events started on 6 August 2016 at the lowest administrative level of the kebele (sub-district).

With Ethiopia’s new conventional vital events registration system in place, there are better opportunities for accelerating vital events registration in Ethiopia, and realizing one of the fundamental rights of children – the right to be registered upon birth.

Amidst risks posed by drought, joint response brings scabies under control

By Paul Schemm

ADIGUDOM, Ethiopia, 27 April 2016 – For Kibrom Mekonnen, the itching was the worst at night, all over his hands and chest and keeping him awake.

“When I slept it just kept itching,” said the 14-year-old, sitting in the examination room at the Adigudom Primary Hospital in Hintalo Wejarat Woreda (district) in the Tigray Region. “But I was afraid if I started scratching, it would get worse.”

Kibrom Mekonnen, 14, listens as a nurse explains how to use the special soap and medication to combat scabies. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Balasundaram

Kibrom’s instincts were right because he has scabies, a contagious skin infection caused by mites that burrow along the top layer of the skin, lay eggs, hatch and spread throughout causing terrible itching.

The real danger, however, can be in the scratching which opens up sores in the skin.

“By itself, it is irritating and itchy but it also exposes you to other infections,” explained UNICEF Heath Specialist Yayneshet Gebreyohannes. “It can result in systemic infections if left untreated.”

Drought brings scabies revival

Scabies has actually been fairly rare in Ethiopia for the past several years, but with the sharp drop in the availability of water due to the worst drought the country has faced in decades, it reappeared.

Casual contact, a handshake or even a hug, is not enough to transmit the mites. There has to be prolonged skin contact or sharing of clothes, which means that outbreaks often happen within the tight confines of homes and schools.

With less water available to wash and maintain personal hygiene, there have been outbreaks in the country.

In the Tigray Region for instance, there were 27,000 new cases reported between October last year to March this year, and nearly 10,000 of those were in Kibrom’s woreda.

Since then however, there has been a significant drop in the number of cases due to the Government leadership and solid response and also UNICEF support to prevent and treat the disease.

In addition to providing medicated soap and permethrin lotion to treat the disease, UNICEF has distributed brochures and teaching guides to educate people about how to combat it and most importantly, not to stigmatize the victims.

Stopping the itch

Kibrom thinks he was infected by a visiting relative, about his age, when the latter visited from a rural village and shared Kibrom’s bed about a week earlier.

Kibrom applies sulphur ointment, one of the methods used to treat scabies, to his hands. UNICEF has partnered with the Federal Ministry of Health in its scabies response and has provided permethrin lotion, medicated soap and brochures and guides to inform communities about the diseases. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Balasundaram

The nurse examines his hands where telltale rashes have appeared in the folds of the skin at the joints.

She walks him through the three-day treatment of soap and medication and promises to visit his family home to advise them on precautions to be taken and provide medication for the rest of the family.

For instance his clothes will have to be treated with boiling water, as will his bed linens and many of the fabrics in the house.

Kibrom is lucky in that his home has piped water, but when water is unavailable, health workers advise people to tie clothes into plastic bags for three days – the lifespan of the mite.

Kibrom is also lucky because his area was targeted by the information campaign so that someone at school identified his condition and explained to him what the horrific itching was all about. Otherwise, he might have just tried to endure – and possibly infected others.

“I kept thinking it was going to go away on its own,” he recalled.

The scabies response is part of UNICEF’s health, communication, and water, hygiene and sanitation  response for drought and flood-affected populations. UNICEF also provides financial support, supplies including medicines and vaccines, and technical assistance to the Government for the prevention and treatment of major causes of childhood illnesses and deaths such as acute watery diarrhoea and other diarrhoeal diseases, vaccine preventable diseases, as well as other diseases such as meningitis.

Water trucking brings relief to remote communities and helps revive local education

By Paul Schemm

Ababa Abraha had to leave school to work when her family ran out of food amid a severe drought. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Hema Balasundaram

When the drought came to the remote kebele (sub-district) of Gonka, Ababa Abraha’s family held out as long as they could, in their picturesque village set among the sharp mountain peaks and deep valleys of the Tigray Region.

With no crops and food, however, they finally had to leave to find temporary work in nearby towns and pulled 14-year-old Ababa out of Grade 7 to work as a house cleaner.

Then came word that there was water being supplied and a Government feeding programme at the Gonka Complete Primary School, a rough stone building in the village, and Ababa was allowed to return.

“I like school a lot,” said Ababa, who dreams of studying finance at university one day. “But I can’t learn without food. If there is no food, I have to work to help my family.”

Gonka Kebele, which is near the arid Afar Region, was hard hit by the drought affecting much of the country. With its two wells failing, it received a 10,000 litre-capacity water bladder that is refilled every other day by a truck that makes an arduous journey over the treacherous gravel road.

Trucking water for the hardest hit

Every other day, a truck transports 10,000 litres of water through mountainous terrain to the drought-affected community in remote Gonka Kebele © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Hema Balasundaram

The current drought has rendered some 5.8 million people nationwide in need of access to safe water. As long term solutions to water scarcity are developed, the Government of Ethiopia, supported by UNICEF, has started trucking in water to the most severely drought-affected communities.

UNICEF’s 100 trucks are operating in the Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, SNNP and Tigray regions and have already delivered 15 million litres of water to 300,000 people in the last month.

“It is the first of its kind, UNICEF providing full water services to beneficiaries,” said Getachew Asmare, the UNICEF Water and Sanitation Specialist in Tigray, where 110,000 people including school children have benefited from 4.6 million litres of water in one month.

In some communities, people are surviving on just 5 litres of water a day, a quarter of the Government-recommended 15 litres a day and a far cry from the 100 litres a day consumed by the average citizen of a developed country,” said Getachew.

The case of Gonka Kebele shows how water scarcity doesn’t just affect hygiene and crops but also education.

A lifeline for the school

Haftu Gebreziher, the 26-year-old director of the Gonka Complete Primary School described how he was losing students by the day before the start of UNICEF-supported water trucking and Government feeding programme. Some were spending the day walking for hours fetching water at the distant river, others couldn’t pay attention in class.

Students also complained about the difficulty of getting a drink and the lack of regular showers due to the water scarcity

“There was a drop in attendance and a rise in tardiness,” he said, estimating a 60 per cent absentee rate. “This was interfering with school but now with the water and feedings, that has stopped.”

A water truck hired by UNICEF fills a 10,000-litre water bladder next to the school. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Hema Balasundaram

The large yellow water bladder donated by the Government of Ireland sits right outside the school, next to the hut where the children’s midday meal is prepared. The students swarm around the water taps connected to the bladder and drink whenever they want instead of taking a long trek by foot or camel to a river in the distant valley.

The €110,000 (ETB 2.6 million) worth of donated water containers marks the latest support from Ireland, which so far has given Ethiopia €9.1 million to combat the drought. The water tanks and jerry cans will be used by UNICEF in the worst affected woredas (districts) nation-wide.

As the WASH cluster lead, UNICEF also supports the Government of Ethiopia and other partners in the rehabilitation, maintenance and construction of new water supply systems, provision of water purification and treatment chemicals, and provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools. UNICEF is also exploring innovative ways to use satellites to detect deep groundwater for large scale, multiple-village water supply systems.

These efforts are helping ensure that students affected by the drought don’t have to forfeit their education. For 14-year-old Silas Hagos at Gonka Complete Primary School, this means that she can once again work towards her dream to become a pilot for the national carrier Ethiopian Airlines. When the drought came, she had to leave the eight grade to work.

She sold soap and packaged biscuits in nearby town for weeks until the feeding programme and the new water bladder allowed her to return and once again dream of flying.

“If we get the opportunity to learn, it is good – an educated person is better than an uneducated one,” she said with a smile.

EU’s Satellite images provide life saving water to drought affected communities in Ethiopia

By Samuel Godfrey

An ongoing UNICEF supported borehole drill in Musle Kebele of Kore Woreda. The borehole drilling site was identified through combined remote sensing technology with conventional methodologies (hydrogeology and geophysics). © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

Ethiopia is in the middle of an El Nino induced drought which has left 5.8 million people across the country without access to adequate water. More than 220 districts of Ethiopia are facing water related emergencies that arise due to either a lack of availability or quality of water.

As the WASH cluster lead, UNICEF supports the Government of Ethiopia and other partners in the rehabilitation, maintenance and construction of new water supply systems, provision of water purification and treatment chemicals, scaling up of water trucking activities, and provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools. In addition, UNICEF is exploring innovative ways to use satellites to detect deep groundwater for large scale, multiple-village water supply systems. As part of the overall drought emergency response, UNICEF supports programmes in child protection, education, health and nutrition.

Groundwater, compared to rivers/lakes or other surface water, supplies 80 percent of all drinking water in Ethiopia. Water from the groundwater aquifers supports emergency water supply, urban water supply and livestock watering. With limited rains, many of these shallow groundwater wells have run dry and these communities rely on expensive commercial trucks to haul in water.

The more sustainable groundwater is located at extremely deep depths. In some cases, more than 300 metres below the ground which is the equivalent in height of the Empire State Building. To locate water that deep and then to drill and extract it is a major challenge.

Satellite image of Afar Elidar woreda potential drilling sites

To tackle this problem, the European Union and UNICEF have selected 9 of the worst affected districts across Ethiopia to use ‘satellite’ technology to locate groundwater. The EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) are providing their expertise by availing ‘no cost’ satellite images which depict the physical and topographical characteristics of the districts from satellites 100s of KM in the sky. These are then combined by UNICEF hydrogeology experts to locate appropriate sites for the drilling of essential deepwells for drought affected communities.

Results to date are extremely encouraging that it should be expanded to a larger scale of the country. On a recent visit to a well sited using this technique in Afar, the UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake said “This approach is very cost-effective, compared to delivering water by truck. Indeed, every permanent well costs the equivalent of only three deliveries of water by truck.”

Mr. Lake added “This is only the beginning. With our partners in the European Union and the Government of Ethiopia we are expanding this effort through out the country, distributing water to villages, schools, health centres and cattle troughs.”

UNICEF would like to express its thanks to the European Union Delegation and the EU-JRC, for their establishment of a remote sensing partnership with UNICEF and providing the un-reserved support so far, which we believe to be strengthen and extended further in the future.

Innovative approaches like these are already showing results for boys and girls in the hard to reach areas of Ethiopia.

Dr. Samuel Godfrey is Chief of WASH for UNICEF Ethiopia, and has a PhD and MSc in Civil Engineering and Water and Waste Engineering.

Ethiopia-Brazil South-South collaboration in urban sanitation technology transfer

By Samuel Godfrey

Wukro Town, situated in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, received two Brazilian experts in the area of sanitary sewerage from 12 to 23 October 2015. The two officials from the Water and Sewerage Company of the State of Ceará (CAGECE), Fabiano Lira and Marcondes Ribeiro Lima, travelled to Ethiopia as part of the Trilateral South-South Cooperation initiative between Brazil, Ethiopia and UNICEF.

Mr. Fabiano Lira and Mr. Marcondes Lima meet Ethiopian State Minister of Water, Mr. Kebede Gerba © UNICEF Ethiopia/2015  

 

In the early 2015, a 2-year tripartite South-South collaboration has been developed between the Governments of Ethiopia and Brazil with the assistance of UNICEF Brazil and UNICEF Ethiopia. The theme is ‘urban sanitation and urban water’ and aims at strengthening Ethiopia’s water supply and sanitary sewerage services, directly benefitting Ethiopian institutions and, in the long term, the country’s urban population.

In 1960, less than 50 per cent of Brazilians lived in urban areas. By 2012, more than 85 per cent of Brazilians lived in urban areas. Africa is urbanizing at a similar rate, with Ethiopia having one of Africa’s quickest urbanization rates. According to the Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency, the urban population is projected to nearly triple from 15.2 million in 2012 to 42.3 million in 2037.

During their visit, the Brazilian officials provided key technical expertise in the development and finalization of the technical project to provide a pilot sewage network in a condominium of Wukro Town, as well as in the identification of a management system for the sewage network. Most of the condominium blocks in Ethiopia are not provided with treatment systems for the waste water produced by residents, whom are systematically exposed to severe risks related to the contaminated environment. The project will therefore contribute to the promotion of better health and quality of life for the residents of the town, with opportunities for expansion.

During the mission, Scoping and technical work was conducted in the field, where key data was gathered for the preparation of the project. The delegates, delighted by the warm hospitality of the people from Wukro, not too different from the semi-arid state of Ceará, presented the drafted project both to the residents of the condominium, requested to play a key role in the management of the proposed facility, local authorities and to Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy.

Brazilian officials, UNICEF staff and Ethiopian officials discuss strategies in Wukro ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2015  

The project proposal was received positively by the Ethiopian Government and local population, signalling a productive first step in the cooperation agreement signed by both countries and facilitated by UNICEF Ethiopia and Brazil Country Offices. The next steps in the cooperation plan will be the building and implementation of the project in Wukro Town, alongside training of institutional partners and eventual expansion into other regions of the country.

Water for agriculture: managing the land and rains in the Ethiopian highlands

This blog is re-published from reachwater.org.uk website

21 July 2015

By Andrew Dansie, DPhil Researcher at Oxford University who joined the REACH diagnostic field visit to Ethiopia, June-July 2015.

A seemingly never-ending line of activity crosses the wall of the Gum Selassa dam to the village of Adi Gudem. It is Saturday and women, men and children are ferrying goods, mainly in the form of livestock, to market. Those that have made the longer journey from the east, climbing up from much drier rift valley of the Afar region, are easily spotted with camels in tow.

Adi Gudem is situated 40km south of Mekele in the Tigray region of the northern Ethiopian highlands at an elevation of 2,100m. The Gum Selassa dam is a micro dam built in the mid-nineties with a 12m high earthen dam wall and a reservoir of around 45 hectares when full. Built to provide water for agriculture, two main channels serve approximately 300 irrigators downstream.

Micro dams such as Gum Selassa are being built in Ethiopia to reduce the variability of water availability for agriculture, but are facing severely reduced life expectancy due to sediment filling up the dams, leaving less and less water storage capacity every year. Vast agricultural land use has long replaced native vegetation in the region, which combined with short duration but high intensity rainfall, contributes to the sedimentation problem.

At the Gum Selassa dam, there is no respite for the camels as they pass by. The reservoir is dry, containing only accumulated sediment which supports a burst of green vegetation, contrasting with the rich brown of the freshly-tilled fields in the surrounds. A number of crops are grown in these fields but the largest by far is teff, a native grain and the staple food of Ethiopia. The grain is ground and fermented then cooked as flat, spongy ‘pancakes’ called injera. Slightly sour in taste but nutritionally high in value and packed with iron, injera forms the base of every Ethiopian meal.

The tilled fields mark the beginning of the wet season with farmers anticipating the first of the rains that come over a short two-month burst. The skies then remain largely dry until the same cycle is, assumedly, repeated the following year. The vast majority of farmers practice subsistence farming. Their small land plots produce enough for feeding themselves but not much, if any, surplus to be sold or stored for years of low yields or crop failure. Read more on the REACH website