Ethiopia

Background
Ethiopia, a landlocked east African country with a population of 74 million, is the oldest independent country in Africa. Apart from its occupation by Italian forces during World War II, Ethiopia is the only African country that has remained free from colonial rule throughout its history.

In 1974, Ethiopia’s monarchy was abolished when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military junta known as the Derg. Over the next 17 years, the socialist state established by the Derg was plagued by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and massive population displacement. After almost two decades of civil war, this military dictatorship was finally toppled in 1991, but the collapse coincided with Eritrea winning its independence from Ethiopia. Seven years later, a renewed border dispute escalated into a full-blown war, and a tenuous peace accord brokered in 2000 by the U.S. and the Organization of African Unity continues to be threatened by disputes over the demarcation of the border.

Although Ethiopia’s devastated economy has stabilized to some degree, it remains one of Africa's poorest states. Almost two-thirds of the population is illiterate, and the per capita gross domestic product is among the lowest in the world. Recurring drought in recent years has devastated the nutritional well-being, general health status, food security, and economic stability of the population.

What International Medical Corps Is Doing
International Medical Corps initiated emergency nutritional and health interventions in the Oromia Region and the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia in March 2003. The program aimed to mitigate the effects of drought and subsequent food shortages by establishing therapeutic feeding centers for severely malnourished children and supplemental feeding centers for moderately malnourished children. At the same time, IMC began implementing expanded immunization programs to increase routine coverage for children less than five years of age and women in their reproductive years.

In June 2004, International Medical Corps adopted an innovative, community-based approach to treating acute malnutrition. Combining community therapeutic care (CTC), which allows for outpatient treatment of most malnourished children, with community education and training in nutrition and agriculture, IMC’s program helps families and communities identify and treat cases of malnutrition before they become severe. IMC runs such programs in 11 districts in Oromia, and five districts in SNNPR, and, to date, close to 12,700 malnourished children have benefited from IMC’s care. Read more about IMC's community-based therapeutic care programs.

In August 2005, International Medical Corps began a pilot project benefiting 2,000 women in the West Hararghe district of Oromia Region. The program targets women who have children in IMC’s CTC programs, and provides them with seeds, tools, and training to increase their agricultural knowledge. The women began harvesting varieties of iron- and calcium-rich crops in January 2006, which has dramatically improved their nutritional and financial status. Families are expected to earn $660 annually, enough to provide basic necessities, health care and schooling for children, and still save money for the future. Read more about IMC's agricultural livelihoods project.

To ensure the continued success of the holistic CTC programs, International Medical Corps provides health education for caretakers of children at risk of becoming malnourished, and for ministry of health (MoH) staff and community volunteers, as well. (To date, close to 20,000 caretakers and 1,400 MoH staff and community volunteers have been trained.) To monitor malnutrition rates, IMC trains district and sub-district (zonal) food security personnel to use the Nutritional Early Warning System (NEWS), a data-collection and analysis program designed to assist community health workers in monitoring malnutrition rates. IMC has established 27 sentinel NEWS sites at targeted Outpatient Therapeutic Centers (OTCs) that measure indicators such as rainfall, crop production, and food storage.

International Medical Corps plans to expand not only its current roster of health care services in Ethiopia to include HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria prevention and treatment programs, but its successful agricultural training program, as well, to thousands of additional households over the next year.