ADDIS ABABA (Ministry of Finance) – The FDRE Ministry of Finance, the Federal Government’s central body responsible for general financial management and economic policies in the country, has outlined expedited humanitarian assistance and recovery efforts in Tigray region, northernmost region of the country which has been under tenacious conflict for the past three months.
Ato Ahmed Shide, Minister of Finance, updated the Executive Committee of Development Partners Group (DPG) on recent developments in Tigray region. The Minister outlined the Federal Government’s priorities in the coming months will focus on effective delivery of expedited humanitarian assistance to all affected people. He also said accelerated recovery and peacebuilding will be a priority to the government.
Minister Ahmed, elaborated how the Government of Ethiopia was forced to undertake the law and enforcement operation in Tigray region and said the intervention was carried out with possible maximum care for the wellbeing and safety of civilians. However, despite the care taken deliberate subversion and purposeful distraction of infrastructure by the TPLF has resulted in major humanitarian and development challenges.
In his briefing, he explained about the significant progress made in recent weeks both on the humanitarian and recovery aspects. He said the humanitarian assistance has reached 1.8 million people with emergency food distribution and more than 305,000 quintals of grain have also been distributed. In addition, he said the emergency food distribution reached 26,000 Eritrean refugees residing in two camps in Tigray. He further urged for the continued support of development partners to urgently reach in particular infants, children, pregnant and lactating mothers who are the most vulnerable. He also added the Government is committed to working with development partners to deliver humanitarian assistance to 2.5 million people in Tigray region.
“I appreciate the recent proactive engagement from development partners, especially United Nations Agencies in ensuring humanitarian assistance needs in Tigray are attained. The Government of Ethiopia is expediting all the necessary facilitation and support for all development partners to be able to efficiently deliver humanitarian assistance” said the Minister. To further enhance and expedite delivery of assistance, he said, “The Government is moving with urgency on approving requests for humanitarian staff movement into and within the region.”
UN Resident Coordinator and UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia, Dr. Catherine Sozi, thanked the Government of Ethiopia for the leadership it has shown in terms of delivering humanitarian assistance to 1.8 million affected people. On behalf of the DAG executive committee, she emphasized on the continued need for more collaboration to address additional people in need. As normalcy returns, DAG members remain keen to work on peace and rehabilitation programs. The need to further enhance logistics support such as having a more efficient clearance system for supply and travel permission for humanitarian work was also raised as areas for improvement in the current humanitarian work.
Dr. Sozi also called upon DAG members to continue their support for the government of Ethiopia as it upholds its responsibilities to assist refugees and other vulnerable populations in the country.
The meeting was concluded with Minister Ahmed Shide emphasizing that both the Government and development partners are working for the same objective to ensure the expedited delivery of humanitarian assistance and recovery efforts to those affected in Tigray.
The Development Assistance Group (DAG) comprises 30 bilateral and multilateral development partners. The main objective of DAG is to foster policy dialogue and coordinate/ harmonize development partners’ support for effective implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the national development plan and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Ethiopia.
Source: Ministry of Finance