Ethiopia

Since 2017, iMMAP has been providing support to OCHA and clusters by deploying national information management officers (IMOs), supported by international IMOs, producing, and delivering information products and services including data coordination, databases, and infographics to inform the country humanitarian response, and improve local IMOs’ capacities to ensure sustainable effects of interventions.

Ethiopia continues to grapple with multiple ongoing crises that generate unprecedented emergencies and humanitarian needs. The overall humanitarian situation in the country has continued to deteriorate in 2022, leading to increased humanitarian needs due to ongoing conflict and violence, and climatic shocks such as the prolonged drought. More than 20 million people are to be targeted for humanitarian assistance and protection in 2022, of whom nearly three quarters are women and children. The northern crisis that started in the Tigray region in November 2020 spread to the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions in 2021, causing further violence, displacement, food insecurity, and constraints on local services. Across Northern Ethiopia over 9.4 million people are currently targeted for humanitarian support. Ethiopia is also experiencing one of the most severe droughts in the last forty years, following four consecutive failed rainy seasons since late 2020. Recent forecasts project that the October to December 2022 season will also be below average, setting the stage for an unprecedented fifth failed rainy season. The prolonged drought continues to compromise fragile livelihoods heavily reliant on livestock and deepening food insecurity and malnutrition.

The humanitarian community operating in Ethiopia is assisting the government in its delivery of the needed assistance to the affected populations. Information management (IM) often ranks behind direct intervention and life-saving activities for resource allocation, even though both depend on IM for successful outcomes. The increasing scale of the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia requires sustained IM services, data analysis, and staff capacity in IM to the humanitarian coordination bodies and actors. iMMAP seeks to provide an integrated solution to the challenges faced, by responding in each of these three areas. Information, analysis, and skills generated will support the monitoring of outcome progress, and gaps, improve the quality and timeliness of information, create a better understanding of the evolving humanitarian situation, and assist with the delivery of the objectives of all humanitarian actors.