Headline Feb 22, 2016/ ''' ETHIOPIA - *ENCODED* '''

''' ETHIOPIA - *ENCODED* '''

FOR PAKISTAN AND  !WOW!  -the World Students Society and its ever evolving Ecosystem 2011,  in  the historic role as  -FIRST CONCEPTUAL HOST- :

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif, has honoured the effort of  focusing, prioritizing and leading for the great cause and the great worth of education. 

!WOW! respectfully appreciates his efforts and thanks the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Maryam Nawaz Sharif. 

*So, need I say,  *that I best suggest to the students of Pakistan*,  to join up and help build !WOW! into a world class organization*.  

MORE THAN  80% of  Ethiopia's population works in agriculture, which makes up about  40%  of the nation's output.

That makes the country especially vulnerable to drought and the effects of climate change.

After a drought in 2002, gross domestic product shrank 2.2 percent, according to World Bank data.

Such droughts bring back painful memories of 1984, when a devastating famine made international headlines and turned Ethiopia into a poster child for humanitarian aid...............

EVERY DAY  -every single day,  Yasin Mohammed Aliye stakes out a spot on his small farm to chew  khat  leaves,  -a stimulant, and guard against intruders.

*The Khat, -he explains, helps to dull the hunger*.

''We got just one day of rain month during the rainy season,'' Mr. Yasin said, referring to the days from last July through last September. It should have been raining every other day. Now my harvest has failed.''

The green hills and full fields around here belie an alarming fact : This is the worst drought Ethiopia has experienced in more than a decade.

The stream bordering Mr. Yasin's farm has run dry, and the trenches he dug to irrigate his land never filled. He has sown seeds three times this year, each time anticipating rains that never came. 

His corn and sorghum stalks are stunted and will yield no harvest. He has sold four of his eight cows at a steep discount in order to buy corn at nearly double last year's market prices.

Mr. Yasin, 50, now regularly skips meals. He worries that the animals he has left to sell will not be enough to sustain his family until the next harvest season. If all else fails, he will move west, where the rains have been more reliable.

''Other farmers are already leaving,'' he said. ''When they go, they ask me, 'Why are you staying here to die?' 

The strength of this year's El Nino, a water warming phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, has devastated rainfall levels across huge stretches of Ethiopia and, in a cruel twist of fate-

May also bring flooding to areas in the coming months, according to Ethiopian officials, the United Nations and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a crisis monitoring group created by the United States Agency for International Development.

This month, the Ethiopian government announced that about  8.2 million people are in need of food assistance, up from  4.55 million estimated last August.   

But Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country, has been working for years to shed all the tragic and negative reputational images,

Since coming to power in 1991, the governing Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front has made strides in reducing poverty and building roads, schools and health clinics. 

The government has claimed double-digit economic growth rates over the past decade.

But the government has a very poor record on  civil liberties  and multiparty democracy; an election last May handed all 547 seats in parliament to the governing coalition and its allies. When the following months brought a disappointing rainy season, critics accused officials of playing down the severity of the crisis.

But Mitiku Kassa, secretary of the National Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Committee, said the government had been proactive, having allocated $192 million for food aid, water transport, animal feed and other assistance since last July.

''The response was quite fast because the early warning system is well developed in Ethiopia,'' he said.

Still, it is not enough, and outside money is needed. The recent re-evaluation of food   assistance needs raised the government's international funding requests for $596 million from $ 432 million.

About 43 percent of that has been supplied by the international partners, but much of it has already been spent.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia, a nation of farmers, strains and stretches under drought.

The Honour and Serving of the  ''Poverty Operational Research''  continues. Thank You all for reading and hope to see you on the following one.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Vital Needs '''

Good Night and God Bless

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