Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Ireland’s bilateral relationship with Ethiopia is very strong. Official Ethiopian Government figures for January 2016 indicate that 10.2 million people will require food assistance, in addition to the 7.9 million receiving food and cash transfers as part of the productive safety nets programme. Ireland is one of the core funders of the programme through Irish Aid and the embassy. We have been doing this since 2005. There are financial resources required to deal with this issue. This is the third largest humanitarian emergency globally, behind those in Syria and Yemen. It is estimated that approximately US$1.8 billion is required to cover the cost of emergency interventions. We will continue to work with multilateral partners such as the UN agencies and on a bilateral basis. We have increased the commitment to Ethiopia because this involves protecting small stakeholder farmers and their families. There are knock-on consequences in terms of in uterodevelopment which is having a major effect on malnutrition and under-nutrition. We will continue to monitor the position.

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