Djibouti. Foto: Marcus Bleasdale

Locals shop for bargains in the market place in Djibouti. It is not lack of food availablity which causes malnutrition in Djibouti, but more lack of ability and means to pay for the food due to poverty and soaring food prices.

 

 

BACKGROUND

 

Drought conditions and high staple food prices have left approximately 441,000

people at risk of extreeme food insecurity and in urgent need of emergency food

and/or non‐food assistance through the end of 2009, according to the latest

government, United Nations, and FEWS NET estimate. Four consecutive

years of minimal rains to support pastoral and agropastoral production have left

rural and urban Djiboutians even more dependent on food imports at a time when

international commodity prices have risen steadily. Unless additional assistance is

mobilized to address extreme food insecurity, particularly in pastoral areas of the

northwest and southeast, as well as in urban areas, conditions are likely to

deteriorate further. Dry conditions have resulted in high and rising levels of acute

child malnutrition since February 2009, livestock mortality rates of 50‐70

percent nationwide, limited food availability and access, and mass migration of

households to urban areas (Djibouti City, Sankal, Assamo, and Beyadde).

 

 

Households in the rural northwest and southeast that depend heavily on livestock

for food and income have been most affected by the poor rains, though extreme

food insecurity is also present in poor, urban communities, particularly due to

increased costs for staple foods that exceed the purchasing power of poor

households. Existing food insecurity is further aggravated by high fuel prices, high

inflation, decreased remittances, border conflict with Eritrea, and a lack of sufficient

government and donor resources to assist affected populations.

 

Foto: Marcus Bleasdale

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