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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-Up 226
8 - 14 January 2005


CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UNMEE reports attack by unknown men on village
ETHIOPIA: Greater policy reform needed to achieve MDGs
ETHIOPIA: Concern over impact of poor rains in Afar region
ETHIOPIA: Farmers to receive certificates giving the right to use land
ETHIOPIA: Coping with increasing orphan numbers through adoption
DJIBOUTI: Pastoral communities likely to face food deficits - report
SOMALIA: Parliament endorses new cabinet
SOMALIA: Relief agencies assist tsunami-affected communities
SOMALIA: Interim government to relocate from Nairobi
SUDAN: UN concerned over continuing violence in Darfur
SUDAN: Polio campaign targets 5.9 million children
SUDAN: Southern agreement raises hope for nationwide peace



ALSO SEE:

SUDAN: Chronology of key events in 2004

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45010

SUDAN: Hopes for lasting peace in the south //Yearender// 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45009


ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: UNMEE reports attack by unknown men on village

The UN peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said on 
Thursday that an Eritrean village had come under attack from armed men. 
Maj-Gen Rajender Singh, UNMEE commander, said the peacekeepers had found 
proof of the incident, first reported in December. He said the mission was 
continuing investigations. An earlier probe had found no evidence of the 
attacks. "What we have found is that there is evidence of burning of some 
houses," Maj-Gen Singh told journalists via video link between Asmara and 
Addis Ababa, during a weekly UN press briefing.

"We have also found that there is some evidence of armed personnel 
carrying weapons having gone there and carrying out these acts of 
burning," he added. "We don't know who is behind it." Eritrea and Ethiopia 
have levelled accusation and counter-accusation against each other over 
armed incidents, but UNMEE insisted that the situation is "militarily 
stable". Last week the UN said recent Ethiopian troop movements near the 
border were purely defensive and neither side was preparing for war. [full 
story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45044]


ETHIOPIA: Greater policy reform needed to achieve MDGs

Ethiopia needs greater policy reform, particularly in the private sector, 
to help achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a senior UN 
official said on Tuesday. Modibo Toure, the UN Development Programme 
country representative, said financial resources, without help from other 
avenues, would not be sufficient if the internationally agreed targets are 
to be met. "The MDGs are not only about resources," Toure told 
journalists. "The resources have to come and find the right kind of 
environment where they can be utilized efficiently.

"Of course they need to continue to improve some of the policies and 
reforms that are in place," he added. "One area that the government can 
continue to improve upon is empowering the private sector." The government 
has made initial assessments, saying they need US $122 billion over the 
next decade if it is to wipe out poverty and hunger and meet the MDGs. 
Officials estimate that $33 billion is needed for rural development, $19 
billion to combat HIV/AIDS and $13 billion to overhaul the education 
sector. Another $27 billion is required for new roads, while the health 
sector needs an additional $13 billion.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45040]


ETHIOPIA: Concern over impact of poor rains in Afar region

Concern is mounting over the likely long-term impact of poor rains in 
Ethiopia's remote Afar region, humanitarian sources in the area said on 
Monday. Valerie Browning, of the Afar Pastoralists Development 
Association, warned that critical water and food shortages were 
threatening both people and their livestock. Browning said she had 
witnessed massive livestock deaths - up to 85 percent of animals in one 
village - and malnutrition particularly in children under two and pregnant 
mothers.

About 1.2 million people live in Afar, a lowland region bordering Djibouti 
and Eritrea, covering 270,000 sq km. The region, whose pastoral population 
are mainly nomadic herders living off their livestock, receives less than 
200 mm of rain a year, according to government statistics.The UN World 
Food Programme (WFP) said its assessments had revealed dwindling pasture, 
causing abnormal migration of herders and their livestock into 
neighbouring areas.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45018]


ETHIOPIA: Farmers to receive certificates giving the right to use land

Ten million farmers will receive certificates guaranteeing land rights, 
deflecting criticism over Ethiopia's controversial tenure system, 
officials said on Tuesday. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs 
has pledged that all the farmers would receive the certificates over the 
next three years. Critics of the government's land policy argue that state 
ownership in a rural-based economy prevents farmers from investing more 
heavily in their land to boost harvests.

However, Mulugeta Debalkew, spokesman for the ministry, told IRIN that the 
new strategy would boost agricultural productivity by creating greater 
security for farmers. Raising agricultural productivity in Ethiopia is 
crucial to the government's poverty alleviation strategy as part of their 
agricultural development led industrialisation. Currently, 85 percent of 
the population are subsistence farmers. "Certification is in favour of the 
poor and it empowers women by legally guaranteeing their right to use 
land," Mulugeta said.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45007]


ETHIOPIA: Coping with increasing orphan numbers through adoption

Wrapped in a bundle of warm blankets and lucky to be alive, four-month-old 
Thomas Bekele still faces a precarious future. Orphaned three weeks ago 
when his mother died from tuberculosis, he is one of the almost five 
million orphans in Ethiopia - a mushrooming crisis that the government 
warned was "tearing apart the social fabric" of the country. The rising 
number of orphans has, however, raised the demand for adoptions to a 
record high. Some 1,400 children made new homes abroad last year, more 
than double from the previous year.

Adoption agencies also doubled to 30 in the capital Addis Ababa in the 
last year, a highly lucrative market with some agencies charging parents 
fees of up to US $20,000 per child. Bulti Gutema, who heads the country's 
adoption authority, says adoption of orphans poses many moral quandaries 
to his government. He blames the growing number of orphans and the 
increasing numbers of adoptions on poverty.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44988]


DJIBOUTI: Pastoral communities likely to face food deficits - report

An estimated 2,000 pastoral families in southeastern and northwestern 
Djibouti are facing food shortages as a result of a poor March-April wet 
season and the failure of the last main July-September rains, a famine 
early warning agency reported on Monday. Food security prospects were also 
not very promising for the inland plains and highlands, which face a six 
month dry season before the next rainy season resumes in April 2005, the 
USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) said in its 
January update on Djibouti.

A majority of the households in the Northwest Pastoral Zone rely on their 
animals as their main source of food, it said. Food security, the report 
added, was likely to deteriorate during the long dry season that started 
in November due a to lack of sufficient pasture and water, poor animal 
conditions, low milk production and low animal prices. Cash incomes in the 
Southeast Border Pastoral Sub-zone were relatively low and mainly derived 
from the sale of firewood and charcoal. Households had intensified their 
reliance on this activity in an effort to compensate for reduced milk 
production and higher staple food prices, FEWS Net said.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45002]


SOMALIA: Parliament endorses new cabinet

The Somali transitional parliament on Thursday approved the new cabinet 
named by Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi, four weeks after the assembly 
rejected his earlier cabinet on the grounds that its selection was 
unconstitutional. The vote was approved by 169 MPs, while 78 voted 
against. "The size of those who voted in favour of the government shows 
that parliament is now satisfied that the prime minister has satisfied 
their concerns and questions", Abdulrahman Aden Ibbi, minister of state 
for parliamentary affairs, told IRIN.

Ibbi said those who voted against the government earlier had done so 
because "some felt their clans were not well represented - others were 
driven by personal interest". He said the next move for the government is 
to decide when to relocate to Somalia. "The cabinet will meet as soon as 
possible [to agree] on an exact date for relocation," Ibbi said. Another 
source told IRIN that the cabinet would meet on Saturday to decide a date 
for relocation.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45043]


SOMALIA: Relief agencies assist tsunami-affected communities

UN agencies were delivering assistance to thousands of people in Somalia 
whose lives were shattered by the tsunami that tore through South Asia and 
the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean on 26 December, relief workers said. 
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) was assisting 12,000 people in the 
villages of Hafun, Gara'g, Bender Beyla and Eyl on the northeastern 
coastline of Somalia, Bob McCarthy, UNICEF Somalia Emergency Officer, told 
IRIN on Tuesday.

"UNICEF has provided shelter materials and clean water, and in 
collaboration with WHO [World Health Organization], emergency medical care 
and measles vaccinations," McCarthy said via satellite phone from Hafun. 
"Collaboration is also taking place with WFP [World Food Programme], who 
are providing food assistance to children and with UNHCR [UN refugee 
agency] on longer-term shelter needs." According to McCarthy, residents of 
the fishing community of Hafun, the worst hit area, had more than half 
their homes destroyed by the killer wave, leaving them without shelter, 
clean water, sanitation and food.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45006]


SOMALIA: Interim government to relocate from Nairobi

The interim Somali government is to start relocating from the Kenyan 
capital, Nairobi, where it is currently based, to Somalia within the next 
three weeks, sources told IRIN on Monday. The government, other sources 
added, was likely to move to the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "The 
government has set the end of January as the tentative date to start the 
relocation to Somalia," Hussein Jabiri, director of communications in the 
interim prime minister's office, said. "It will be a gradual relocation."

The prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, named a new cabinet on Friday, 
nearly a month after his initial line-up of 76 was rejected by parliament. 
There are 42 ministers, 42 assistant ministers and five ministers of state 
in the new cabinet, Jabiri told IRIN. "I have made this list to the best 
of my ability," Gedi said while announcing the new team. In rejecting the 
first line-up, the parliament said clan quotas had been ignored and that 
the right constitutional procedures were not followed in the selection.

[Full story at:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44982]


SUDAN: UN concerned over continuing violence in Darfur

The western Sudanese region of Darfur could experience more violence 
unless approaches are adopted to contain the volatile situation there, the 
UN special envoy to Sudan has warned. Jan Pronk, the special 
representative for the UN Secretary-General for Sudan, told the Security 
Council in his monthly briefing that conflict was spreading outside 
Darfur, UN News reported on Tuesday. The violence, he added, was affecting 
humanitarian work more frequently and more directly than bureaucratic 
restrictions ever did, "with fatal and tragic and consequences".

"Large quantities of arms have been carried into Darfur in defiance of the 
Security Council decision taken in July," Pronk said. "December saw a 
build-up of arms, attacks of positions, including air attacks, raids on 
small towns and villages, increased banditry [and] more looting." Lauding 
the comprehensive peace agreement signed on Sunday between the Sudanese 
government and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army 
(SPLM/A), as "a milestone", Pronk said resolving the Darfur conflict 
should be the priority in 2005. "It is hard to imagine that the peace 
dividend promised by the Nairobi agreement will be reaped without an end 
to the suffering in Darfur," UN News quoted Pronk while addressing the 
Security Council in New York. "International aid will not flow and, more 
importantly, in Sudan itself, the achievement will turn out to be 
vulnerable."

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45039]


SUDAN: Polio campaign targets 5.9 million children

A campaign to immunise nearly six million children against polio in Sudan 
started on Monday in the western region of Darfur despite ongoing threats 
of clashes between government forces, militias and rebels in the area. The 
three-day campaign got off to a successful start with none of the teams of 
vaccinators reporting security incidents, the UN Advance Mission in Sudan 
(UNAMIS) reported.

"So far, we have not received any reports of hostilities," Radia Achouri, 
spokeswoman for UNAMIS, told IRIN on Tuesday from Khartoum. "It seems the 
rebels and the government are respecting our ceasefire request." The UN 
Secretary-General's envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, had last week urged the 
government and rebel groups in the conflict-ridden region to suspend 
military activity so that the campaign could take place safely. The 
campaign is part of a nationwide exercise that would, apart from targeting 
northern Sudan and the Darfur states, also start in the south on 17 
January.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45005]


SUDAN: Southern agreement raises hope for nationwide peace

The comprehensive peace agreement signed on Sunday between the Sudanese 
government and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army 
(SPLM/A) marks a new beginning for peaceful co-existence across Sudan, 
officials said. Vice President Ali Osman Taha and John Garang, SPLM/A 
leader, signed the agreement in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, bringing an 
end to 21 years of civil war that has virtually destroyed the southern 
region of Sudan.

Sudanese President Hassan Omer el-Bashir, who called the agreement "a new 
beginning for the people of Sudan", said it should pave way for the 
resolution of problems of war and displacement in the western region of 
Darfur. "We will embark with dedication to end all acts of hostility there 
[in Darfur] and move fast to achieve a successful solution which will meet 
the anticipation of our citizens in that beloved part of our country," he 
said. "Sudan for the first time will be a country voluntarily united in 
justice, honour and dignity for all its citizens regardless of their race 
- regardless of their religion - regardless of their gender," Garang 
declared in his speech.

[Full story at: 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44987]


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