Ministry, dev’t partners discuss climate change, food security, and resilience building  

Addis Ababa, February 28, 2024 (FBC) – The Ministry of Finance and Ethiopia’s key development partners group heads of the agency discussed on climate change, food security, and resilience-building efforts in the country.

Ms. Semereta Sewasew, State Minister for Finance, who chaired the meeting, said the Ethiopian government is responding with humanitarian assistance in times of crisis, has been working on resilience-building programs and continued investment to expand agricultural productivity achieving substantially higher productivity using climate-resilient, sustainable practices, developing better economic linkages, and supporting household capacities to deal shocks through programs such as the productive safety nets.

On his part, Ambassador Shiferaw Teklemariam, Commissioner of the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission, while highlighting the current humanitarian needs and the departures of the new Disaster Risk Management policy, underlined that though there are efforts from development partners to address humanitarian responses, there is a significant resource gap and a shocking declining trend in humanitarian assistance.

The meeting focused on how to address current food shortages, particularly in northern Ethiopia, the continued assistance for drought-affected areas in the southern and southeastern regions as well as flood-affected areas in the country. The declining trend of humanitarian assistance, challenges related to addressing humanitarian issues, and the options to fill these gaps were deliberated.

The development partners also emphasized that addressing the current humanitarian crisis with concerted efforts is needed in tandem with the efforts to build and strengthen resilience. To this end, further coordination, alignment, and working towards a stronger humanitarian-peace-development nexus is the keyway forward.

The Meeting was Co-chaired by Dr. Ramiz Alkabarov, United Nations Resident Coordinator, and Mr. Paul Walters, UK Development Director. The meeting was attended by ambassadors of the various countries and bilateral and multilateral development partners.