Background
Djibouti is an extremely impoverished country with few resources, but the country’s location has allowed it to become a shipping hub inland to other countries in the Horn of Africa. The country has also declared itself a free trade zone, seeking to capitalize on its main port, another deep water port in construction and a railway to Addis Ababa.
Some three-quarters of the country’s people live in the capital city, Djibouti. Just three percent of the country’s land is arable, and in the countryside most people derive their living from herding. This, however, is becoming precarious as the semi-arid country loses ground to desertification and diminishing rains.
Nomadic and semi-nomadic herders have lost up to 70 percent of their animals in the last few drastic drought years. Many are migrating to the already strained cities.
In addition, some 30 000 refugees, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, are sheltering in the country with few services to support them.
Irrigation is the only way
Sedentary farming is possible with irrigation, as well as in areas around oases and the seasonal rivers called wadis. Agricultural products include tomatoes, gourds, other vegetables and grasses for animal fodder. Cereals and fruit trees are cultivated, but very little due to the lack of water.
The country is dependent on the outside world for the vast majority of its food and fuel needs. Djibouti imports some 80 percent of its needs in cereals and 85 percent of its fruits and vegetables.
Due to the lack of rain this last year, it is estimated 150 000 people are faced with hunger and up to 100 000 of these people are in need of food aid. More than 80 percent of rural people live below the poverty line.
FAO Response
FAO is supporting the government with a Technical Cooperation Programme project worth US$250 000, which is providing vegetable and fodder crop seed to 7000 vulnerable farming families. The project is also assuring provision of hoes, rakes, watering cans, and salt licks for livestock. Pesticides will also be provided.
This will allow pastoralists to strengthen their herds so they can thrive and fight off disease.
Countries in the Horn of Africa region, including Djibouti, are also benefiting from a regional TCP project that supports governments in formulating emergency and long-term policy responses to the situation of soaring food prices. Monitoring and evaluation of national projects and related capacity-building are also included.
The European Commission is funding a needs assessment at country level for formulation of long-term strategies to address high food prices. Agricultural inputs are also being supplied.
Finally, the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund is providing funding worth more than $250 000 to assist 85,000 pastoralists in the country and in the peri-urban areas around the capital. Seeds and tools are being supplied, as well as vitamins and vaccines for families raising livestock. In addition, through a food-for work programme, families will help construct underground cisterns and other water storage systems to put additional land under irrigation for food crops and fodder.
The OCHA project also builds upon ongoing FAO programmes that are putting in place a system of solar pumps to extract valuable groundwater resources for irrigation.
FAO has ongoing development projects in Djibouti aimed at maximizing water harvesting and storage techniques, so that animal herders can continue their tradition while facing new climate challenges.
