Food Aid and Humanitarian Assistance

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USAID provides humanitarian assistance to areas of Ethiopia plagued by persistent food insecurity. Disasters like droughts and floods often directly trigger emergency needs, but recurrent factors also create and increase vulnerability to these shocks. Land degradation, limited household assets, low levels of farm technology, lack of employment opportunities and population pressure all undermine efforts to maintain sustainable livelihoods. Through an assortment of humanitarian assistance activities ranging from rapid-response programs to longer-term interventions, USAID utilizes programs like the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and Joint Emergency Operations Program (JEOP) to address food insecurity in Ethiopia in a comprehensive, sustainable manner.

Projects include:

• Joint Emergency Operations Program (JEOP): Address the food needs of drought-affected populations by working with relief beneficiaries to distribute resources.
• Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP): Transfer resources to chronically food-insecure households through food-for-work programs that engage recipients in public works activities focused on the development of community resources. PSNP multi-year action programs will be awarded to multiple partners who work in the areas of nutrition, social assistance, agriculture, and environment.
  See also: PSNP GRAD
• Revitalizing Agricultural/Pastoral Incomes and New Markets (RAIN+): Protect the asset base of vulnerable and food insecure households and transition these households to a system of long-term economic growth.
• Office of Disaster Assistance (OFDA): USAID responds to all types of natural disasters, from droughts to floods. In addition to providing emergency assistance, OFDA also funds activities to reduce the impact of recurrent natural disasters. OFDA Ethiopia Overview [PDF, 168KB]

See also:

Humanitarian Assistance in Review: East and Central Africa 2003 - 2012 [PDF, 215 kb]

Building Resilience to Recurrent Crisis: USAID Policy and Program Guidance [PDF 876 kb]

USAID's Joint Planning Cells: Identifying Solutions from the Field [video, 3:02]