Emergency Livestock Response for Drought Affected Vulnerable Communities in Borena Zone, Oromiya Region,Ethiopia The humanitarian situation in Ethiopia is not showing signs of improvement. The 2017 Government-led multi-agency and multi-sector mid-year needs belg assessment confirmed that rainfall was below normal in terms of onset, distribution and cessation in many parts of the country. Humanitarian needs continue to escalate in Ethiopia’s livestock-dependent communities, especially in southern and south-eastern pastoralist areas. Livelihood needs are highest in southern Somali region, South Omo zone of SNNPR and the lowlands of Borena, Bale and Guji zones of Oromia region, where pastoralist communities are almost entirely dependent on livestock for their food security, nutrition and income and still reeling from poor/ failed spring and autumn rains in 2016. The 2017 mid-year review indicated that the post-spring rains/belg harvest assessment and projections for 2017 indicated that 2.25Million households in need of livestock support. Milk production in cattle declined by as much as 80% while significant milk production losses were also recorded in camels and goats, raising serious concerns over already high malnutrition rates. Urgent livelihood-based support is required to help protect surviving livestock, prevent further deterioration in levels of food and nutrition security and shorten the time needed for recovery. These urgent interventions are required to help pastoral households maintain their herds and avoid losing their livelihoods. Accordingly, GOAL Ethiopia have designed this proposal in the context of Strategic Objective on of the HRD - To save lives and reduce morbidity due to drought and acute food insecurity. In the lowlands of Borena the communities are almost entirely dependent on livestock for their food security, nutrition and income extremely poor availability of and access to water and pasture has resulted in alarmingly increased rates of livestock morbidity and mortality. As a result of the poor and failed 2016 Hagaya (September-October) and 2017 Genna (March-May) rains, pastoral systems in Borena zone are in the emergency phase of the drought cycle, the livestock are emaciated with pasture depletion and water shortages resulting in very poor milk yields. 
The overall objective of this project is to provide support to protect livestock and livelihoods asset of drought affected pastoralists/ agro- pastoralists of Borena zone of Oromiya region in Ethiopia. So the priority interventions will be livestock feed distribution and provision of animal health services. This objective is a derivative from the second round EHF allocation strategy which expedite support to integrated livestock response in pastoralist areas including interventions on feed for livestock, animal health and destocking for 1.75m households to the end of the year. The intervention will focus on provision of feed for livestock and health and 3,318 vulnerable households and family members in Dire and Dhas woredas of Borena zone will benefit from this project. In line with the SAG emergency livestock response and cluster prioritization exercises in July 2017 for the agriculture sector, this project will be a continuation of the support of the integrated livestock response in pastoralist areas.