20 January 2023 TIGRAY EMERGENCY COORDINATION CENTER OPERATIONAL UPDATE

Tigray Emergency Coordination Center has an update. Below are some excerpts, in different clusters. The full report is at the end.

Food Cluster situational update as of 19 January 2023

• Humanitarian access, particularly in border areas, areas off the main roads and locations requiring cross-line movements, continues to be challenging for food response. Due to access constraints which hindered food dispatch, some communities (both host and displaced people) of Zala Anbesa town, Aheferom, Emba Sieneti, Erob and Gulo Mekeda woredas received their food rations in neighboring woredas, including Bizet, Adigrat town and Hawzen town.
• As of 12 January, some woredas remain either fully or partially inaccessible for food partners:
  • In Central Zone – Adet, Adwa, Aheferom, Ahsea, Chila, Edaga Arbi, Egela, Emba Sieneti, Endafelasi,Hahayle, Naeder, Rama and Tahtay Maychew.
  • In Eastern Zone – Erob, Gulo Mekeda and Zala Anbesa town.
  • In North Western Zone – Adi Hageray, Dima, Laelay Koraro, Seyemti Adyabo, Tahtay Adiyabo, Tselemti, and Zana.
  • In Southern Zone – Chercher and Ofla.

Key Challenges (19 January, 2023)

• Unable to address the humanitarian food needs of 19% of the target population by all food partners (in 2nd Round of 2022).
• Humanitarian access, particularly in border areas, areas off the main roads and locations requiring cross-line movements, continues to be challenging for food response.
• All food partners have to continue relying on humanitarian flights to bring cash into the region while banking services, gradually resuming in the main towns, is yet fully functional. Significant amount of cash is required for partners to cover day-to-day operation costs and previous credits, ensuring that assistance continues without interruption.
• Together with the local authorities and communities, partners are working on re-targeting to include people who are newly displaced or experiencing secondary displacement in the caseload and identifying other most vulnerable people in need based on available vulnerability information (for instance, demographic and socio-economic data). This exercise has been very challenging due to fluid population movements, high number of displaced people, limited or non-existing local government structure, presence of multiple armed actors in some areas, and lack of documentation among IDPs.

Way Forward (19 January, 2023)

• To support partners in providing timely and adequate assistance to the most affected populations with limited resources, strengthening/re-establishing local government structures as well as the linkages between authorities at all levels, ensuring that civil servants, having not been paid for more than 18 months, receive their salaries, and resuming unrestricted flow of commercial supplies into Tigray is crucial in addition to full resumption of essential services (including banking, communication and other enablers) in all parts of the region.

• Sustaining the ongoing food assistance through the most appropriate modalities, complementing it with agriculture and livelihood support in collaboration with other clusters is critical to improve food security in the region and prevent further deterioration. It is expected that food assistance may be needed at least up to next main harvest season in late 2023. Scaling up support for agricultural production, market integration and early recovery activities with provision of regular and predictable assistance is urgently needed to reduce the food gaps in Tigray.

Education

▪ School reopening date is yet unknown and children in Tigray will enter their 4th academic year without access to Education if schools remained closed.

▪ In Tigray, only 25% of the children were able to access compensation education while 75% of them remained out of school for three academic years.

▪ A Draft Accelerated Learning Plan aimed at compensating the missed academic years is prepared and to be tabled for discussion and endorsement by the Bureau of Education.

▪ With OCHA’s & the National Education Cluster support, the 3rd round EHF Funding = 1.5M USD is exclusively allocated to Tigray.

The Report below

Previous Reports

• TIGRAY EMERGENCY COORDINATION CENTER OPERATIONAL UPDATE (2)
• TIGRAY  EMERGENCY COORDINATION CENTER  OPERATIONAL UPDATE (1)