The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), with funding from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), has solarised a borehole pump in Kori village, Afar Region of northern Ethiopia.

The solar project, in line with number six of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is expected to benefit 10,500 people from Kori and surrounding communities.

UNICEF, in a tweet, said the solar project will enable the most vulnerable people to have access to drinking water at a time the Horn of Africa is facing severe drought.

Three consecutive failed rainy seasons since late 2020 have brought on severe drought in Ethiopia’s lowland regions, drying up water wells, killing livestock and crops.

‘[S]olar-powered system is helping [to] provide continued access to safe and clean water for an entire community in drought-hit Ethiopia’, the tweet read.

‘A new solar power system has been installed to prevent fuel shortages of the borehole pump. In addition, a water-through has been built for cattle to drink from’.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) noted in January 2022 that the drought was affecting the livelihood of some 6.8 million people and disproportionally affecting women and children.

‘Before we suffered fuel shortages. To buy fuel, the operators had to go to Semera more than 130 kilometres away’, UNICEF quoted Zara, a mother of one, as saying.

‘Sometimes we were without water for one or two days but since the installation of the solar panels, we have water constantly on sunny days’.

The effect of the drought is further compounded by fighting between Ethiopian troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The fighting started after the TPLF attacked a key Ethiopian military base in the region in November 2020.

The Tigray Emergency Food Security Assessment, a new study by the World Food Programme (WFP), found that 83 percent of people in the region are food insecure as a result of the conflict.

Photo source: UNICEF