Djure Boko grabs a small red wash basin from near the fireplace. Wheat grains cover the bottom as she shakes the basin in front of the visitors. There is no trace of any other edible stuff in or around the home she shares with her children and husband, Bali Dadi.

The family’s home is typical for the people of Borana in southern Ethiopia. A low, doom like hut thatched from branches collected from the surrounding dry bush. There’s barely any straw filling and one can see right through the hut from the outside. Seats are made out of dried clay with no blankets for comfort.

It’s the hut of a pastoral people - traditionally on the move for good pasture for their cattle. But for a while now, the family has been settled in the hamlet of Deru Danfile, some 45 km off the main road that connects this part of southern Ethiopia with Addis Ababa and the highlands, 500 km to the north.

Like other families in Borana, Bali Dadi and his wife have tried their luck combining cattle hold with growing maize. But the persistent drought that has upset the livelihood of people across a great swathe of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Kenya, has hit this family too.

"We’ve tried to grow maize for four years but with no success. The drought has ruined it every time." Bali Dadi explains.

Before the drought, he owned some thirty cows, which gave enough milk for the children. But all the cows have died during the drought, Bali Dadi says. "Some died just like that - in the bush - others died when I tried to drive them to the market to sell them."

Farming in vain
Some 1,400 families live in the area around Deru Danfile and according to Ato Gira of the local Peasant’s Association, people have lost most, if not all, their cattle.

Looking at the assembled men, a relief worker remarks that they appear remarkable fit - considering all their hard luck. The answer comes promptly and pointedly from a young man at the back of the crowd.

"Don’t judge the situation by what you see here in the village. We’re close to a road and that gives us chances which others do not have." Pointing to the bush the young man continues: "If you saw what people look like out there, you would cry tears."

The children in Bali Dadi’s hut and around the hamlet are skinny but they do not show evident signs of severe under- or mal-nourishment: No potbellies, swollen faces, thinning reddish hair or overly skinny arms and legs.

In other words - the situation in Deru Danfile differs markedly from the images, which flickered across the world’s TV sets in April - the images of starving children and adults in Gode further to the east of here. All the same, what one encounters in Deru Danfile, is probably more true of the situation in most places now receiving food aid in Ethiopia. Not an all out acute famine but a situation where year’s of drought has turned farming into a hardly worthwhile exercise. Cattle and goats have gradually perished before their owner’s eyes.

In desperate attempts to make some cash for buying food, families have sold off whatever valuables they had and until drought gives way for normal rains, millions of people across Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Somalia depend on aid from the outside.

Food aid on a huge scale
A huge relief operation is speeding up in Ethiopia. Ship after ship dock in the port at Djibouti and thousands of grain sacks are being loaded on trucks headed for various parts of Ethiopia. Some 10,5 million people - one in every six Ethiopian - are said to be in need of food aid. This figure is put forward by the Ethiopian government and as most figures in emergencies, it is an estimate (for more on this see sidebar story: Hunger by Numbers).

Some 60,000 people in Deru Danfile and in other parts of Borana are receiving aid through the Joint Relief Partnership (JRP) of the Ethiopian churches and their partners in ACT International and Caritas Internationalis (CI).

The churches aim at supplying 12 - 15 kg of grain (maize or wheat) per person per month. In total JRP/ACT/CI aim at assisting approximately 755,000 people in different parts of Ethiopia. This figure may have to be increased if the drought persists for much longer and if sufficient funds are available.

Successfully and fairly carried out, general food distributions will improve the situation for millions of families across Ethiopia. It gives people that crucial bit of extra strength, which may enable them to remain on their own land with just enough food and hope to try to cultivate once again, in the belief that eventually a normal rain will come.

Serving the most needy
Djure Boko’s youngest child, a boy of one year, may not have the potbelly of a severely malnourished child. At the same time, it does not take an expert to see that the he and many of the children in Deru Danfile are weakened to a point where their health should be monitored in order to decide if they need supplementary feeding.

ACT member agencies have carried out nutritional studies in some of the worst affected parts of Ethiopia: Bale, Borana, South Omo and in the Somali region. The results were upsetting with high levels of severe malnutrition.

The sad fact is that people have continued to die from hunger in the most critically affected parts of southern Ethiopia - even at times when huge amounts of food aid are being distributed throughout the country.

Trying to alleviate some of the suffering and to prevent the situation from getting any worse, ACT members Norwegian Church Aid and the Mekane Yesus Church run feeding programs for especially needy children in parts of Bale and Borana. ACT members Dutch Interchurch Aid and Christian Aid are involved in similar projects in other areas of special concern including the Somali Region.

The situation in parts of southern Ethiopia highlights a frequent weakness of large-scale food aid programs. Food may be reaching almost all parts of the country but the most needy populations (often living in remote and politically marginalized areas) were not given the special attention needed to prevent them from sliding into a famine situation in the first place.

In situations with wide widespread food crisis, churches and independent relief agencies can play a crucial role. Although they handle smaller amounts of money and food, they can ensure that the most needy are being served. Also when these people live in the most marginalized, remote and thinly populated areas - as for instance in the semi desserts of the Somali Region or the arid bush of Borana and Bale.

SIDEBAR:

Hunger by numbers

How needs for food aid is decided
In April this year, TV-images of starving children in Gode caught the world’s attention. Journalists and relief dignitaries subsequently flocked to southeastern Ethiopia. Soon food shipments and promises of further food and money followed.

The Ethiopian government, international media and some relief agencies criticized donors such as the EU and USAID for having responded too slowly to the "famine" in Ethiopia.

Just weeks later - and now with substantial new donations ensured - Ethiopia launched a fresh large-scale offensive in the border war with Eritrea. Seemingly Ethiopia achieved most of its military and political goals in just a couple of weeks’ of fighting. But hundreds of millions of dollars were burned up in the process and another humanitarian crisis created: Some 500,000 refugees and displaced which now have to be fed and sheltered in Eritrea and Sudan.

The international media was quick to condemn the perceived cynicism of the Ethiopian government: How could it spend millions of dollars on war when some of its people were starving to death?

The media also turned on donor governments and the relief agencies - now criticizing them for indirectly supporting Ethiopia’s war efforts through the very donations, the media itself had effectively helped trigger two weeks earlier.

While there were significant truths in many of the stories carried by the media, few seemed to pay much attention to another reason why things went so wrong in Gode and other remote parts of Ethiopia: Hunger was being handled by the numbers.

The Ethiopian government primarily focused on the overall food situation in the country, but seemed relatively less concerned about the situation in some of the worst affected areas.

In Ethiopia local, regional and central authorities assess the need for food assistance in cooperation with UN organisations, relief agencies and community organizations. Weather and crop forecasts and harvest assessments are also taken into account.

As in all other major humanitarian crisis, this process involve factual data and assessments as well as political and economic considerations by all involved.

Apart from the humanitarian concerns, such considerations could be ensuring adequate assistance to areas of specific political interest for a government. Or it could be the opposite: downplaying the needs in areas known to harbor strong anti-government sentiments. Other considerations could be a government’s or UN agencies’ ability to work in some areas. Expectations to the level of funding available from donor governments and the EU may also play a part in the final outcome.

In the case of Ethiopia, the churches, their international partners and most other relief organizations, largely rely on the official government figures for both general and local assessments of the situation. Consequently they base their appeals and planning on the government figures.

Once the level of assistance is known and food or other relief supplies start arriving, final lists of the actual beneficiaries are drawn up at the local level.

While such a process of assessments, appeals and final distributions is the only practical way to work in a large-scale food crisis, it also opens up for the selection of beneficiaries to be influenced by many other than strictly humanitarian concerns. Even if the central authorities have the best of intentions, officials at regional and local levels may manipulate figures or they may simply represent their own area poorly in this process.

This way of assessing needs and deciding on how food is being distributed is usually good for overall coordination and appeals but it easily miss out on particular needs in some of the most vulnerable communities.

The most needy are typically female-headed households or families who have been displaced from another area and do not "fit in" with the rest of the villagers. Or it can be entire areas, which have a weak administration, are physically remote and inaccessible or for other reasons attract less concern and interest from the central authorities.

Smaller aid agencies, such as those working with the churches, can make up for some of these errors by insisting, and ensuring in their own projects, that the most needy of the needy are assisted.

Nils Carstensen filed this report after a visit to Ethiopia in July. ACT International and Caritas Internationalis have issued a joint appeal for US $ 32 million for Ethiopia.

Joint Relief Partnership (JRP) is made up of The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, The Ethiopian Catholic Church, The Lutheran World Federation and Catholic Relief Service. ACT members Norwegian Church Aid, Dutch Interchurch Aid (ACT Netherlands) and Christian Aid work in partnership with JRP in Ethiopia.