- Your Excellency Dr. Fikru Regassa the State Minister of Agriculture of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia representing H.E Oumer Hussein, Minister of Agriculture, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia;
- Distinguished Delegates of IGAD Member States;
- Distinguished Representatives of Development Partners;
- Ladies and Gentlemen;
- All protocols observed,
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to Addis Ababa, and invite you as chairperson of this platform to listen to my remarks at the 14th IDDRSI Platform Steering Committee meeting.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This platform that has brought us together today was established 11 years ago by the heads of states of the IGAD Region, EAC and Development Partners following the severe drought of 2010 to 2011.
It continues to do so now at this most critical time when we are facing the worst drought in 40 years.
In these last 11 years, IGAD has supported Member States through IDDRSI to develop joint programmes that targeting regional issues through programmes that address development challenges in cross-border areas.
In this regard we have been supported by our partners notably, the AfDB, the World Bank, KfW, the EU, SIDA/Sweden, USAID, BMZ/GIZ, Islamic Development Bank, Denmark, Swiss Development Cooperation, and UNDP.
In addition, IDDRSI has benefitted from the technical support of FAO, ILRI, and GIZ. I also want to recognise the generous support of the Swedish Government which has strengthened the Coordination and Implementation of IDDRSI.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
IGAD has been consistently working to strengthen resilience capacity in the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in the region, through cross-border development cooperation mechanisms that contribute to regional integration.
The cross-border development facilitation unit, piloted in the Karamoja Clusters serves four countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda, is now being scaled out to other clusters through various programmes supported by IGAD, including the borderland resilience project in collaboration with UNDP.
Similar efforts are underway with the support of the European Union to build on preceding cross-border development projects in three clusters of the region.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is also my pleasure to inform you at this point that IGAD is set to launch a mid-term review of the 15 years of IDRISSI, where we will draw lessons and inform improvement in the design and implementation of this very important programme.
This review will take into account existing and emerging challenges such as COVID 19, Desert Locusts, protracted conflicts, macro-economic shocks, and the current drought.
Our intention is to learn by doing, in order to increase the adaptive capacities of our people to the complex situations they are facong. In this regard, lessons generated from Phase I of IDDRSI have been translated during Phase II, which will subsequently inform Phase III of this initiative.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are now in the midst of the worst drought in 4 decades. The number of food insecure people has risen exponentially from 40.2 million in May 2022 to over 50 million now.
To make matters worse, this is not just a food crisis but a health crisis as well; malnutrition among children, the elderly and women is in excess of 19 million in the three most affected countries namely, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, accounting for 8.1 million, 4.1 million and 7.1 million, respectively.
Additionally, it is also an economic crisis with over 7 million head of livestock which are the mainstay of pastoralist communities lost.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In response, IDDRSI was established to build preparedness through early warning systems and coordination mechanisms at regional, national and sub-national levels as well as foster political commitment by our Member States and like-minded development partners.
These circumstances we are in now compel the need for a paradigm shift where we should accept the impact of these multiple shocks including the war in Ukraine.
The changes we must make require not only to “do things differently” but also a re-think of resilience programming in the region.
I challenge our experts to find technical innovations that will put us on a transformative path towards more anticipatory and lasting outcomes in the coming years.
In closing, I wish to thank the people and Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia for hosting this 14th IDDRSI Platform Steering Committee meeting, members of the steering committee, and development partners for joining us both physically and online.
I wish us all fruitful deliberations.
Thank you.
Download the attached Speech in PDF below
