USAID partners with countries across sub-Saharan Africa to reduce vulnerabilities to climate change and making economies and livelihoods more resilient.
Ethiopia is currently faced with the worst drought in 50 years. An initial dry spell extended throughout 2015 and then, with the affects of climate change and El Nino, the devastating lack of water could last for much of 2016. Upwards of 80 percent of Ethiopians rely on mostly rain-fed agriculture for their food and income.
Badoo Fukura, 28, stands at the bottom of a basin that used to be the community watering hole. It served about 30 different families here, near the small town of Aje, south of the capital Addis Ababa. In normal years, after the rains the water here lasts for six months. The water only lasted two months in 2015. The watering hole went dry in October.
Fukura has two daughters, ages 5 and 6. She had to send her other daughter to stay with relatives about 2 hours away, she said, because she could no longer afford to buy water for both girls. Fukura harvested nothing in 2015. Original public domain image from Flickr