Oxfam America Blog

Medhin Reda depends on rain to water her fields of teff and corn. Erratic weather has a profound impact on the well-being of her family. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

Climate talks in Copenhagen are just a few weeks away. Here at my desk in Boston, I’m hearing a growing urgency in the pitches from campaigners who have been working long and hard to get the United States and the European Union to own up to their responsibility for the future that is facing us all.

But what I hear louder, still, are the voices of the people I met in Ethiopia in August for whom changing weather patterns and increased cycles of drought mean failed crops, skipped meals, and deeper poverty. Read the rest of this entry »

Loko Dadacha walks up to six hours, round trip, during times of drought to fetch water for her family. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

Our water bill came the other day. It was about 100 bucks—a spike from the month before and it left us scratching our heads. Where did all that water go? We hardly know because here, with water, it’s easy come, easy go. Turn on the tap and it gushes—hot, cold, or just right. It couldn’t require less effort. Read the rest of this entry »

Terraces around the village of Ashenge have been built to help conserve the soil. Photo by Marc Cohen/Oxfam America

Marc Cohen is Oxfam America’s senior researcher on humanitarian policy and climate change. Here’s his account of a recent visit to northern Ethiopia where famine struck a quarter century ago.

Twenty-five years ago, Michael Buerk’s dramatic BBC footage from Korem, in northern Ethiopia, brought a devastating famine to the world’s attention. Tens of thousands of people had sought refuge from war and drought in the town. Every 20 minutes, a camp resident died from hunger and related diseases. Buerk called Korem “the closest thing to hell on earth.”

Last year, I traveled to Korem while working on a research project about decentralization in Ethiopia and how that affects men and women farmers’ access to services. My colleagues and I arrived in the town just as the regional Orthodox Christian patriarch was inaugurating a large new church; hundreds of people had turned out for the colorful ceremony. This celebration was a big contrast with the grim images of 1984.

But it was a meeting with Merzeneb Firkado—her first name means “honey from heaven”—that made me realize how much has changed for people in the Korem area since that terrible period. Read the rest of this entry »

A woman gathers water from the Dawa River in southern Ethiopia. With drought sweeping the region, clean drinking water sources are becoming fewer and farther between. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

Last night a colleague emailed me a copy of a really powerful speech by Rajenda K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the 2007 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. At the 45th Annual Nobel Conference in Minnesota earlier this week, Pachauri talked about water—a topic that struck me as particularly important right now, given the drought sweeping through East Africa and my own recent experiences visiting drought-affected communities in Ethiopia.

“At one level the world’s water is like the world’s wealth. Globally, there is more than enough to go round. The problem is that some countries get a lot more than others,” Pachauri said.

He also emphasized the link between climate change and water, and the fact that scarce resources can lead to conflicts in already-fragile areas.

“Due to the very large number of people that may be affected, food and water scarcity may be the most important health consequences of climate change,” Pachauri said. “There is no more crucial issue to human society than the future of water on this planet… We must work diligently to see that the worst effects don’t come to pass. We have very little time. Unless we act with a sense of urgency, there will certainly be conflict and a disruption of peace.”

Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

A man in the Netherlands is trying to cash in on what the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says could someday be a $10 billion market for goods produced from camel’s milk. According to the New York Times, Frank Smits has imported a small herd of the lanky, cranky creatures and is coaxing milk out of them at the rate of a gallon and a half a day per camel. And he’s selling it, hardened into cheese, for $60 a pound.

I’m not so sure about their milk (or the price of their cheese), but I have to admit, I’m kind of in love with camels—especially after a recent reporting trip to Ethiopia, where drought takes a swifter toll on lesser beasts. Camels can suffer, too, but not like cows. And increasingly, pastoralists in the southern part of the country are expanding their herds to include camels, prized for their endurance when the rain refuses to come. On this trip, it seemed like we were seeing them everywhere—saucer-footed and gangly—loping along the dusty tracks that snake through the region.

But as hardy as they may be in dry climates, camels need water just as much as the rest of us do. And there’s no sound quite as lusty as a crowd of them draining a trough. Here’s proof:

I just got back from my first trip to Africa, where I learned how Oxfam and our partners are helping people overcome drought in southern Ethiopia. This post continues a series of blogs that I wrote along the way.

Today we drove to the place at the end of the road.

I’d tell you where we were, but I don’t know exactly. Somewhere in the Liben region of southern Ethiopia. But when I pull out the creased, dusty map to locate myself, I find only white space, the blank territory of the most remote place I’ve ever experienced.

I’d tell you the name of the road, but it doesn’t have one; those who live here just call it “the road”. The vision of community leaders, this road was hand-built by local people with support from Oxfam’s partner the Liben Pastoralist Development Association. Now that it exists, the 600 households in Malka Haloye—a remote community long cut off by its sheer distance across difficult terrain—can access services like schools, markets, and medical care.

Even in our Land Rover, it took two hours to travel these 45 kilometers. The drought-stricken landscape made me think of Mars, or maybe the moon:  red earth, gray stones, and the bent filaments of bare white trees. A choking hot dust swirled through the air, even with the windows rolled tight shut. Dry branches scraped the edges of the car with a snapping sound like breaking bones.

And the bouncing… let’s just say this road isn’t for those prone to motion sickness, as you can see from the above video.

But just when you think the road can’t get any steeper, or the terrain any more forbidding, you arrive at Malka Haloye. It’s a cluster of plowed fields and small earth huts along the banks of the Dawa River, surrounded by leafy trees that draw an unexpected stripe of green across the harsh terrain. As we pulled over at last, I realized this was the first time all day that I’d seen living, flowing water.

It was a welcome sight. And it reminded me that, for those 600 households, this place is home—even if it’s a long road to get here.

I just got back from an incredible first trip to Africa, where Oxfam and our partners are helping people overcome drought in southern Ethiopia. This post continues a series of blogs that I wrote along the way.

This morning I sat in on a great interview with Terefua Bagajo, one of the data collectors for Oxfam’s drought early warning system (DEWS). I was happy to hear her say that DEWS  is not only helping local people predict and prepare for droughts, but also improving women’s standing in the community.  “Women speak more now, and women are listened to in meetings,” she said.

Borena women from Gutu Dobi.

Although, after meeting Terefua—and many other confident, charismatic Borena women—I wonder how anyone could not respect what they have to say.

Women, even young girls, do a lot of the heavy lifting here. They care for children, prepare food, and walk for miles to collect each day’s drinking water.

And with the last three years’ decrease in rainfall, times are not easy for them and their families. There’s sometimes only enough food for one meal a day. The dried-up corn withers away in the fields. The majestic, humped Borena cattle, which traditionally form the wealth of the people, are growing skinnier by the day. But the women carry on, undaunted by obstacles beyond anything I’ve ever had to face.

And despite what we’d consider a lack of material comforts, this is also a place of real beauty, where people take pride in their culture and their community.

Women and girls glimmer with elaborate jewelry and patterned shawls that bloom, flower-bright, against the washed-out blue sky. Traditional incense perfumes the warm air with a sweet-smoky scent. Recently, people started painting their earth-walled houses in colors made of clay—brick red, dove-gray, soft pink—trying to outdo each other with graceful, swirling patterns.

Read the rest of this entry »